Looking down to the crux from the edge of the Lodner summit plateau

These marble slabs on the short north ridge of the Lodner are the crux of the normal route. It's rated as UIAA grade II. There are two reasons that make this part a bit tricky:

• As you may have guessed from this picture, the rock quality isn't too good, and some of the rocks are loose.
• The slabs are smooth and can be slippery. When there are cracks, the climbing is easy enough, but climbing up a big, smooth slab without cracks is not without danger.

I was fortunate enough to find the route with a lot more snow than usual. Nof far below the edge of the plateau, the slabs where covered with snow and ice, keeping any loose rocks that might cause problems nicely in their place. And for the most part, the snow offered good traction too. But where the cover was not so good and there was ice under a thin layer of snow, I preferred the rocks. As you can see, higher up I didn't have much of the choice. The metal pole featuring prominently in the center is drilled into the rocks to help protect the climb. You can simply attach a rope, or rappel from the ring on the descent. If you look a bit longer, you'll see that there are a lot more of these poles. In the background are the grey bulky mass of the Hohe Weiße (3278m), and to its left and behind the darker Hochwilde (3482m). The distance between Lodner and Hohe Weiße is just over a kilometer. The ridge between is UIAA grade III. I didn't cross it, I came up over the Lodnerferner, which is the snowy area left of the saddle below the north ridge. The first part, from the saddle to the dark summit, may look easy, but when I saw it during my approach of the saddle from the left, it certainly looked a lot different. Not that the climbing itself looked really hard, but it was pretty exposed. 15 July 2013.