Radim: I haven’t been in the winter mountains for ages, so I’m looking for a peak worth the effort. Suddenly the name Watzmann pops into my head – somebody must have mentioned it to me once. I look up where exactly the mountain is and what there might be to climb on its faces. It looks like a fine peak, the drive is spot on, and I can’t find anything about a winter ascent of the “small” east face, which makes the challenge even more tempting.
Ondra: I rate Radim as one of the few genuinely good, truly all-round climbers. And when he comes up with an idea this interesting, I can’t say no. In the time before we leave, I dig around for information on the route we want to climb. But I search in vain for any mention of a winter ascent. All I find is an article by Ines Papert and Luka Lindič about their first winter traverse of the Kleiner and Grosser Watzmann, which they named the Family Traverse. And in it, one little gem – when deciding how to climb the Grosser Watzmann, Ines and Luka judged “our” route to be more dangerous in terms of avalanche risk and chose a different part of the face instead.
So we go for the Wiederroute on the east face of the Watzmann Mittelspitze. Ahead of us is a half-kilometre-high face with a long traverse along a prominent ledge and several shorter traverses. We’ll skin to the foot of the face, climb to the summit with the skis on our backs, sleep in a bivouac hut and ski back down to the valley the next day. A quick hit – that’s the plan.
We roll into the Hammerstiel car park at around eleven at night. We sort and pack the gear – a bit less of it than we’d originally planned, but that’s a quick hit for you. We rethink the original two-day plan with a bivouac in the hut on the summit of the Hocheck. Based on the summer times given in the topo – 4 hours approach, 4 hours climbing, 4 hours descent – we decide to do it in a single day. We’ll definitely be faster going up on skins, and we’ll whizz down on skis. And that frees up Sunday to climb some ice on the way home. A beer and good night.
The alarm goes off at five. We brew coffee, force down a bite to eat and, before we sling our packs on, the freshly opened toilets lure us in – no point hauling that up the mountain. Around six we set off over the remnants, or perhaps the faint echoes, of snow – it’s a strange winter.
Four and a half hours. That’s how long it takes us to put 1,300 vertical metres behind us and stand at the foot of the face. It seems we aren’t that much faster on skis after all. If anything, our skins were dragging. We’ll have to make up the time on the face.
We swap ski poles for ice axes. Finally, weapons we know how to wield – and maybe even race with. We strap the skis to our packs, rack up and off we go up the first pitches! To speed things up on the easy ground, we decide to simul-climb. So we both move at the same time, tied together by a rope that we clip into protection whenever we can. The first pitch is the one and only where the sun still shines on us. Even now in January it has real power, so the snow is melting like ice cream on a hot summer’s day. It gets us dreaming of relaxed spring climbing. But we soon find out we’re wrong again.
We’d sort of hoped that finding our way on the face wouldn’t be a problem. After all, in summer this route is pretty popular and often climbed. The description even mentions cairns, waymarks and chains. And we’d expected the odd bolt, or at least an old rusty peg here and there. None of that materialises – apart from two bolts at the start, which only served to reinforce our initial rosy outlook.
But traversing snowy ledges with almost no chance of placing protection is not much fun. Especially when the snow suddenly collapses, pours away and gives your feet little support – one step up, two steps down.
Ondra: Just before the end of the traverse, when I can no longer see Radim and have no idea whether there’s any protection between us at all, a chunk of snow slides away with me on it. With the skis on my back I’m so clumsy that I just sink and slide several metres through the loose snow before I manage to get my axe in properly and stop.
Radim: From the end of the traverse I climb about two pitches to the start of the main ramp. I bring Ondra up; I can’t see him most of the time, but his colourful vocabulary assures me he’s still here with me.
The main traversing ramp turns out to be quite wide, but more to the point – endless! There’s no firn for us to practically run up. Just loose, unstable, frozen powder. Maybe we should take the skis off our packs and skin up, because as it is we’re ploughing our way up, sunk to mid-thigh in snow.
And sadly, the conditions don’t change at all with the hard-won vertical metres. On top of that, our pace keeps dropping – the first ramp took far too much out of us. At times our progress up the face is no different from the ski approach to its base – we zigzag back and forth. So we don’t gain much height, but our trail-breaking is premier league. Any rabbit would be jealous.
At dusk we reach the end of the second, maybe third ramp – we’re losing count. We peer over the edge hoping to finally see better terrain. Not a chance! Another kick in the guts. Below us opens a rocky gully, and above it, on rock that isn’t exactly solid, a boulder problem dares us to climb up to the next ramp. Of course there’s no decent way to protect it. We stop hoping the ramp will ever end, and we’re not even sure we’re where we’re supposed to be. Call in the chopper?
Hardly. We have no signal. And besides, the shame of it! So we downclimb unstable snow, protected over a cornice on the ridge – reader, best not ask for details – then traverse into the face and hope it’ll let us through. A hole gapes beneath our feet. It opens up like the jaws of a beast that wants to swallow us boots and all.
Radim: The first attempt ends on bare rock that you simply can’t climb any further. On the second attempt I descend lower over unstable snow and finally reach a snowfield where – by now in the dark – I bring Ondra up.
Ondra: About a third of the way along the traverse I get the feeling Radim isn’t taking in the rope. I yell at him to take in, but apparently he can’t. So I keep traversing, and the rope is now swinging far below me – straight into the beast’s jaws. I swing over the edge and see there’s a knot in the rope jammed in the karabiner of a runner. There’s nothing for it but to climb down another ten metres to it, with the rope dangling way below my feet. According to the GPS we’re still three hundred vertical metres below the summit – which doesn’t do much for morale.
Radim: My legs are wobbling. When I stop, I feel sick. We’ve run out of water; we’re saving the last sip for the summit.
Ondra: The constantly collapsing snow is completely destroying me, mentally and physically. I used up my stock of swear words about two hours ago. I really don’t know any more. Then I think of my little son – whenever he gets up to some mischief, he starts laughing his head off. That cheeky grin of his brings a hint of a smile to my face too. And for a while it goes again.
At least the weather is on our side. It’s clear, windless, and the almost-full moon lights up the face like a giant lamp. After a few more pitches we finally scramble onto the summit ridge and then beneath the final little wall to the summit cross. Not a trace anywhere – no sign of any human presence. With hard-won smiles we shake hands in triumph.
But our great day out is far from over at the top. The watch says 23:00. We’ve got a lovely twelve hours on the face behind us and sixteen if you add the approach. So only twice what the topo gives for a summer ascent. Marvellous! After that last swig of water we set off along the ridge towards the Hocheck, where we can – or rather could – get a splendid night’s sleep. If only we hadn’t turned a two-day trip into a one-day one without sleeping bags or a stove.
Luckily we find chains under the snow, so at least we’ve got something to hold on to. Ondra’s head torch gives up the ghost, but the moon is in full swing tonight and stands in for any artificial light. The ridge, however, is once again longer than we expected. It takes us another two hours.
At one in the morning, with our lights and clinking gear, we wake three Germans in the bivouac hut on the Hocheck.
Radim: The German doesn’t look too keen on letting me into his sleeping bag. So I’m for descending another eight hundred vertical metres to the Watzmannhaus, where there should be a winter room with a stove, beds and blankets. Besides, three Germans won’t dry out the swimming pool in my boots, and they probably won’t suck on my rapidly freezing fingers either. I try to talk Ondra into carrying on with the “death march”.
Ondra: The overnighters tempt me with two mini sausages, which they give us as a bonus alongside half a litre of water. And the prospect of finally lying down! I no longer believe the talk that the terrain gets easier further on – I don’t believe anything any more. But I’m not going to split the team. So on we go.
We say thanks and goodbye and apologise for waking them. The signpost says two hours to the Watzmannhaus. This time it’s right. But the winter room is full. No wonder – at three in the morning. We sit down on the benches by the cold stove, take off our gear and gaiters, and we’re not capable of any further movement.
Radim: The toe of my ski boot liner is encased in ice; luckily my toes are fine. We need to light a fire in the stove and melt at least a litre of water from snow. We’re completely dehydrated.
Ondra: For the whole top third of the face, standing at the belays in ski boots, my little toes were tingling terribly. At times they hurt like hell. And I could feel every blister. My little toes are still tingling now.
In the end we tip the magnesium we find on the table into half the water from a pot standing on the stove. A group is just waking up; they’re pretty loud and clearly haven’t quite grasped the state we’re in. We ignore them, just hibernate on the benches and live through our muscle fever.
Around seven in the morning we wake up completely alone in the hut. Everyone has disappeared up the mountain. We stoke the stove with the last of the wood, melt snow for water, finish drying a few things and set off – the last thousand vertical metres down to the car.
Radim: Just below the hut I put my skis on. Having dragged them over the whole mountain, I have to ski at least a little bit. Even though my legs aren’t really listening any more.
Ondra: My feet hurt so much and are so wrecked from the ski boots that making a turn would mean one big cramp. It’s all downhill, so I shift into neutral and walk all the way to the car on foot.
