Image: Egger
Lahnerkogel, Kitzstein, Bosruck, , Großer Pyhrgas and Scheiblingstein: The mountain tour that a 29-year-old from Garsten (Steyr-Land district) had planned for Tuesday was ambitious. But the young mountaineer had experience with such activities and had planned the route down to the last detail.
He wanted to climb down the Laglkar from the summit of the Scheiblingstein in the direction of the Hengstpass, where his partner was supposed to pick him up again in the evening. But he never got there. His girlfriend had chauffeured him early in the morning to the starting point at the Pyhrnpass in Spital, from where he started on the partly exposed hiking trail in the direction of Bosruck.
There were no problems up to the summit (1992 meters), from there he also reported to his relatives. Then there was radio silence.
When he still hadn’t arrived at the agreed meeting point at Hengstpass by 8 p.m. and couldn’t be reached by phone either, his girlfriend called the emergency number. A large-scale cross-border search operation was initiated by the Kirchdorf alpine police in cooperation with the mountain rescue centers Spital am Pyhrn, Windischgarsten, Admont and Selzthal. “We had poor visibility, it was raining and a thunderstorm was on the way. Unfortunately, there was no chance of a helicopter mission,” says Daniel Schröcker, local manager of the Spital am Pyhrn mountain rescue service.
“Knew what he was doing”
By 1:40 a.m., 82 mountain rescuers and alpine police officers were looking for the Garstner – in vain. The search was called off and resumed early Wednesday morning. Shortly after half past eight in the morning, the Graz flight police made the sad discovery: the young man had died in an accident. He may have lost his footing on the descent over the north-east ridge of the Bosruck, immediately after the Frauenmauer. “The weather was good that day and the man experienced. He knew what he was doing. Unfortunately, we couldn’t help anymore,” says Schröcker.
Source: Nachrichten
