Eleven volunteers from the mountain rescue team in Mühlbach, a village in Austria’s Salzburg region, spent an entire night in a snowstorm to save a young German who had been left alone high on the Hochkönig massif. He raised the alarm at about 7 pm on Saturday from the Königsjodler via ferrata, stuck at roughly 2,600 metres, worn out and getting dangerously cold.
He had set out that afternoon with two friends, ignoring a gloomy forecast and, according to the rescuers, a clear warning from another climber that it was too late to start. When he could go no further, his companions kept climbing. They reached the Matrashaus hut near the 2,941-metre summit, already closed for the season, and sheltered in its winter room.
Bad weather grounded the rescue helicopter, so the team hiked up from below through a steep, icy gully, wearing crampons. They found the climber shortly before midnight. Then a fresh cold front arrived. Around 20 centimetres of new snow buried the trail, small slides ran down the slopes and everyone had to be roped together for the descent. It was 8:18 on Sunday before the whole party finally stood outside the Erichhütte, a hut far below. The man was exhausted but unhurt.
District rescue chief Gerhard Kremser said the climber would probably not have lived through another night up there, blaming overconfidence and poor planning. “The mountains are not going anywhere,” he added, urging people to turn back in time.
Austrian alpine police have passed the case to prosecutors. Austrian broadcaster ORF reports that the man had agreed to try to descend alone while the others continued, which experts say makes a charge of failing to help unlikely. The German Alpine Club, which insures him, is also checking whether gross negligence could affect who pays for the rescue.
