Well we are back from another action packed adventure. We had absolutely amazing weather as we summitted the Dachstein and this time my group was lucky enough to have Kim along for the ride. The Dachstein is a 3000m(10000feet) mountain, the largest in the area, but what makes it so special is that it has a 1000m vertical south face and hopefully before the end of the summer I will summit the Dachstein again only this time up the South Face.
Soon there will be a picture update and plenty of stories to share. First one about the Dachstein. Hiking to the top is not too difficult, but involves crossing one of two large glaciers, while being roped together with your team mates so as not to lose anyone in a crevasse, followed by which we climb up one of two large klettersteigs that weave along the edge of the 1000m cliff. Klettersteigs are large sections of steel cable or rope that are bolted up the side of the mountain. The person climbing the klettersteig has a special “klettersteig set”, which is basically two carabineers at either end of a short piece of rope which at the middle is attached to your harness. As you ascend the mountain you clip one carabineer on to the rope/cable and as you pass a bolt you clip the other carabineer in above the bolt and unclip the lower one and so on. The reason for the klettersteig is that the climb is either too difficult for normal walking or if you trip the risk of dieing is too great. Needless to say we climbed to the top of the Dachstein over glaciers, steep and dangerous terrain, and with our backpacks on. I must say I was impressed with how many handled their fears.
The only real danger that we almost faced was shortly after we had climbed off of the klettersteig and back on to the glacier. As we were preparing to start off across the glacier another climber started a rock slide down onto about 4 people climbing. Thank-fully no one was hurt, but both guides were surprised that no one was killed! Considering the size of group it is a good reminder of how important it is to be careful and constantly remind the students about safety and check that they are safe.
Here is a picture of me sitting on the highest point. I climbed the cross as well, but you can see that in the picture set that I put up tomorrow.
