Actually, it should have been a few nice days, but it turned out differently. A woman (48) and a man (39) from the Czech Republic traveled to Hallstatt at the end of June to vacation there. Both had alpine experience and wanted to climb the Seewand via ferrata on Friday morning. The via ferrata has a wall height of around 750 meters and is one of the most difficult and longest in the Eastern Alps.
At 8 a.m. the two climbed – although the passage of a cold front with heavy rain at times had been announced. The wall on the north side was still wet at this point. The two progressed far too slowly. The woman in particular was tired and had slight pain in her knee. The two only reached the point “Since 1881” (altitude 1250 meters), which corresponds exactly to half of the wall, at around 2 p.m. This usually takes about two hours. Nevertheless, they climbed on to the “bat bivouac” (1320 meters). There they recognized the hopelessness and climbed down again. Still secured to the steel cable of the via ferrata, they thought they saw a path far off and headed for it. But the path was only a chamois change and led the two into impassable steep terrain. At 4:30 p.m., the two exhausted climbers finally made an emergency call and described their predicament.
A mountain policeman who speaks fluent Czech interpreted. After the weather conditions and visibility improved, the helicopter crew managed to save the two climbers on the short hanger at around 6:15 p.m. and fly them down into the valley. Lucky for the Czechs, because a terrestrial rescue operation could not have taken place in the evening and after hours due to the conditions and the terrain – they would have had to hold out until the morning hours. The climbers, who refused medical attention, were taken to their car after being rescued.
Source: Nachrichten
