The prospects are slim. To the Berchtesgaden Alps, shrouded in dense clouds sinking into the September snow. And now for a happy ending.
A large body of rescuers has been looking for a 24-year-old climber from Lower Saxony since Saturday afternoon. The conditions are at the limit of what is reasonable: snowfall, icy rocks, heavy rain, wind and fog. The young man had set out on a tour of the 2,607 meter high Hochkalter. Which route is still unclear.
At 3 p.m. the control center in Innsbruck received the first emergency call. Something went wrong, the young man said. He is on the rise, between 2400 and 2600 meters above sea level and is seriously injured. On the head and also on the arms. They were probably broken and he was trying with all his might not to slip further.
Six calls, then radio silence
At 3:40 p.m., two mountain rescuers were dropped on the southwest side of the mountain, just below the cloud line.
Five minutes later the second call: the young man said he was not seriously injured. But he lost his gloves and is somewhere between small and very cold.
Four other mountain rescuers were flown up the mountain, the rest climbed on foot. Around 7:30 p.m. another phone call to the missing person: He was very cold and could not say exactly where he was. The rescue team had meanwhile arrived at 2,600 meters above sea level, gullies and crossings were already heavily blown in. In the meantime, more than half a meter of fresh snow had fallen.
The last call turned the search upside down: The 24-year-old said he had climbed the Blaueishütte, i.e. the east side. From there, mountain rescuers climbed into the demanding (climbing sections up to the second level of difficulty), high alpine terrain.
The group at the summit first had to shelter from the freezing wind in an emergency tent and warm up for the descent. The situation had already become too dangerous.
Up to a meter and a half of snow
In the fifth phone call, the 24-year-old gave new coordinates, which in turn indicated a different location on the Hochkalter. The mountain rescuers made the last contact at 9.30 p.m.: They encouraged the mountaineer not to give up under any circumstances and to persevere despite the adverse conditions, although he did not feel able to climb up to the ridge himself, so that there was any chance of finding him in the snowstorm that lasted all night .
At around 3:30 a.m. the operation was broken off and resumed at 6 a.m. – so far without success. A search on the ground by emergency services in steep, high-Alpine terrain where there is a risk of falling is currently too risky due to the large amount of fresh snow and also not very promising, since it continued to snow during the night and there is between half a meter and one and a half meters of snow on the mountain.
Mountain rescue and the police are now trying to continue the search from the air when the flying weather is better. Time is the greatest enemy.
Source: Nachrichten
