Getting there
For the south approach you have to follow the road until
Matrei, then the valley Virgental to the village
Hinterbichl, 1329m. Here you park the car by the houses in the village or you drive some 500 meters from the village and then on the crossing turns to the right and over the road you reach the larger parking place near the stone-pit. You can take a taxi to the hut
Johannishütte, 2121m or you simply walk by foot all the way to the hut over the macadam road through the beautiful valley called Dorfertal.. One nice possibility is also with the bike.
Useful map of the climb.
Route Description
Grossvenediger near the Johannishütte, 2121m.
From the hut Johannishütte we continue over trip to the next hut
Defreggerhaus, 2962m. From the Johannishütte we first cross over the small brook and then we start ascending over the nice grassy and rocky slopes. Here we will see many marmors. Or if we have a bad luck we will only hear them. We ascend higher and higher and soon we come to the spot 2802m where we for the first time see the hut. Over the scree and rocks we reach the hut. If we are on the two day trip I suggest to ascend the same day some meters higher to the ridge where we can see the long glacier
Inneres Mullmitzkees.
From the hut we go some 100 meters to the ridge where we make a glacier rope and we descend a bit and then we cross a big glacier also called
Rainerkees. We have through the whole year nice wide path in snow all the way up to the pass
Rainertörl, 3422m between
Hoher Aderl, 3504m on the left and
Rainerhorn, 3560m on the right. We must be careful on the crevasses.
From the pass we ascend to the top of
the big glacier basin Oberer Keesboden. From here we steeply reach the ridge of Grossvenediger. At the end we have almost flat and very airy ridge to the top of the Grossvenediger.
We descend by the same route.
From the hut Defreggerhaus we need from 2,5 - 3 hours.
Essential Gear
Ice axe, ropes and crampons are necessary because the glacier is full of cravases.
With ski, most mountaineers don't use a rope, but everyone has to decide this on his own. Ice axe and crampons at normal conditions not necessairy.
Miscellaneous Info
If you have information about this route that doesn't pertain to any of the other sections, please add it here.