SW-ridge ("Stuedlgrat")

Approach

Get to the Stuedl hut (see Main Page) and sleep there if you are not a first class sportsman to do it in one day from the valley.

A small zig-zag path leads with 200 m ascent to the beginning of the Teischnitz Kees. Follow the glacier on the west side of the horizontal ridge of the "Luisengrat" that separates Teischnitzkees and Koednitz Kees. There are some crevasses so you should use the rope.
The Luisenscharte (3175 m) is the beginning of the Stuedlgrat, But it is easier to climb left of the ridge about 100 m before following the bolts to the top of the ridge.

Route Description

The route follows mainly the ridge and should be easy to find because there are bolts and sometimes iron stifts.
Important Sections are:
- the breakfast place
- a dihedral (german: Verschneidung)
- a short passage on the west side on the ridge
- the "Kanzel" (pulpit), the most exposed section
- the "Rote Fleck" (red spot), most dificult part (IV) but there is mostly a little cord and after the most difficult move a cable makes it easy

Descent:
on the normal Route to the Erzherzog Johann hut. Staying the night there would be a great experience, but perhaps it is a better idea to descend back to the Stuedl hut, so that you don't have to carry overnight equipment in your rucksack

Topo

here on the website www.bergsteigen.com you can find a topo of the climb

Essential Gear

Rope, helmet, a few quickdraws and loops of webbing
There are bolts for belay stations and at the most difficult parts two cables habe been installed.
For descent: ice axe, crampons, a ice screw

Best time

From July to September as long as there is no new snow on the rocks. The descent is more difficult then because of pure ice at the Glocknerleitl.
If you can cope with some snow in the route reports show that in autumn (up to the end of October) often there are good condition - and the mountain is less crowded then.
At such a popular route it is always advisable to avoid the weekends.

history

1st ascent by Josef Kehrer and Peter Groder (September 10th 1864) with help from Thomas and Michael Groder decending from the summit (so not an ascent "by fair means" in nowerdays attitude). Reason for exploring the route was the effort of the mountain guides from Kals to find an easy route direct from their village to the the summit so that tourists should not go to Heiligenblut but to Kals. So in these times there was really a match between the villages about the benefits from the tourists. Therefore in the following years cables were installed at the Stuedl ridge so it was almost a "via ferrata". But in the following years the cables went to ruin so the Stuedlgrat is again really a climbing route.
The name of the ridge and of the hut is a honor for Johann Stuedl, a buisiness man from Prague, who was a "sponsor" of the people of Kals and inventor of the mountain guides of Kals. He also was one of the founders of the german alpine club.

Books / Links

The route is described in the following German book:
"Hochtouren Ostalpen" by Edwin Schmidt and Wolfgang Pusch, Bergverlag Rother Munich 2004, ISBN 3763330100

There are some links about the Stuedlgrat in the Web:

route description in German at www.bergsteigen.at
picture gallery by D. Polentz
route description in german by guidebook author Kurt Schall on www.alpintouren.at

Miscellaneous Info

If you have information about this route that doesn't pertain to any of the other sections, please add it here.

Additions and CorrectionsPost an Addition or Correction

Viewing: 1-5 of 5

Ari - Apr 5, 2005 6:10 am - Hasn't voted

Route Comment

According to "Hochtouren in den Ostalpen" (Schmitt & Pusch) the grade is AD.

DoJo - Sep 13, 2006 9:06 pm - Voted 10/10

bolts

AFAIK the "Thenius-Haken" have been cut off and have been replaced by bolts

Mathias Zehring - Sep 13, 2006 9:34 pm - Hasn't voted

Re: bolts

Thank you for the information. I changed the description

bogdivoda - Sep 4, 2013 10:34 am - Hasn't voted

topo map

http://franzgassner.at/Touren%20weitere/Stuedlgrat2012/Stuedlgrat.pdf if we would had this before doing the route....:)

Mathias Zehring - Sep 4, 2013 4:42 pm - Hasn't voted

Re: topo map

Hi, thank you for your comment. The link you give leads to the same topo I had linked to. But unfortunately the link was broken because bergsteigen.at had changed to bergsteigen.com. Now the bug is fixed.

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