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| Page Type: Trip Report Location: Salzburg / Tyrol (Venediger group), Austria, Europe Lat/Lon: 47.10910°N / 12.34520°E Date Climbed/Hiked: Jul 7, 2000 | Page By: camp-1 Created/Edited: Aug 14, 2003 / Object ID: 169032 Hits: 552 Loading... Page Score: 0% - 0 Votes Loading... Vote: Log in to vote |
We started our climb of Venediger in the village of Mittersil (aprox. 940 mtrs a.s.l. ) , after a grueling journey of 16 ! hours from holland in a bus loaded with old people going to see the Prater in Vienna. The hike up the the Neu Further hut (2200 mtrs) starts just out side the village about a 30 min walk and leads into a narrow valley covered with moss and small birch shrub's cooled by a fast flowing meltwater stream. we hardly ascent since the trail follow's the valley floor which starts to widen after about 1,5 hours. walking thru a lush green valley full of alpine flower's we see the effect's of the rainfall of the past few day's , everywere are landslide's and we pass a piece of rock the size of a house , no 4x4 has been here for a week , we are the first here. After another 2 hour's of valley walking we reached the supplie cablecar of the Neu Furhter hut , here the route steepens and lead's straight up to a small "scharte". Here we traverse our first snowfield , it's small but it's our first. After a hard hike up (we had no time adjusting so we went up right away) we reached the "coll" and got our first look at a real mountain hut , tantalizingly close but still 1.5 hours of stiff hiking to go. On top of the torture on our untrained bodies we met our first alpine thunderstorm , never had i been this close to bad weather and instead of putting on my rain gear (which my brother did) i decided to take it to a higher gear thinking i could outrun the rain ! resulting in me getting wetter than ever and catching a cold , but never the less the hike up here is awsome!. The next day we met our guide Hans and the rest of the group , we were here on an alpine course of the dutch alpine ass. The first goal was to climb the "house mountain" of the hut the Larm Kogel a large hump of rock of 3022 mtrs high , not very difficult but with a rather steep and big snowfield about halfway up. Near the summit cloud's gathered round us and we reached top in near withe out conditions. Dizzy all day , i did the trip in 6 hours. After a sleepless night (impression's , impression's) we had to start early for the hike to the Neu Prager hut. Around 6 a.m we walked up into the mountain's on our way to the Rote Wand here we had to dodge rock's that came falling down randomly after 2 hours we reached the scharte on the Rote wand , but first again straight up a snowfield. After 30 min. of lactic acid torture we reached a huge glacier plateau at about 3000 mtrs giving us a tremendous vieuw of the Gross Glockner and Gross Venediger. From here we had to descent again to the valley floor nearly 1000 mtrs below us , already tired all i could think of was the ascent when we reached the other side of the valley. It took us over an hour to get to the bottom and by now every one but the guide was getting tirred. After a steep and hard hike of 4 hours we got to the hut , the last meters alone with the guide who promissed me that there was cold beer in the hut. After again a sleepless night , this time from the 7 hour hike the day before, we had to get up at 4 a.m. to be able to start at 5 a.m. I skipped breakfast because i can't eat this early certainly no "heavy on the stomach" Ausrian bread ,i figured a small bowl of corn flakes would get me to the top , washed away with a gallon of coffee. 5 a.m. were on the glacier and the sun is just on the climb. We start of with crispy snow and a magnificent view on the Schlatten Kees and further up the glacier the Kristal Wand and the Schwartze Wand. In the distance the summit of the Glockner pierce's the cloud's. After 2 hours the route turnes right and starts to steepen , time to put on crampon's and to devour my lunch pack , i got a visit from the man with the hammer after an hour of walking , but didn't want to slow the group any more than i did since i'm rather slow anyway. Ten minutes later were on the move again and after another hour we reach the upper glacier and with this our first look of Venediger from up close. Suddenly something inside me changes , were still 2 hours away from the summit but i feel's like i'm already there. From this point on to the point when we reached the "for" summit everything is blurred by emotion's. when i come to my sense's i'm surrounded by people. "this can't be it " i think. Then i notice the last strech , i'm not there yet still 50 meters to go and they lead over a knife edge ridge. Vision obscured by tears i walk onto the summit. I'm at 3667 metres above where i live , i kiss the cross fall to my knee's and start to cry like a child. I can't do anything else. Strange name's flash in my head , Namche , Lukla , Periche. Mount Everest ?.Maybe , but this one is mine.
(i'm really sorry for the bad info on some of the name's but i lost all my info on the trip, the dog ate it ;-)
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