Two years ago, I met my good friend and ski buddy Jörn by chance, as he was the only other person skiing Lichtenberg Mountain on an early season December powder day. Jörn is German, and was living in Seattle, where we did lots of great ski trips together, until he unfortunately had to move back to Germany last fall. I’ve been hoping to visit him since he moved back, and last week’s ICWSM conference in Copenhagen presented just the right opportunity. Jörn lives right next to the Austrian border, very close to Salzburg, and with great weather forecast, we made plans to attempt to climb the Großglockner, the tallest summit in Austria, on the way to the conference. (I spelled Großglockner with the Eszett in the title of the post, because it looks exotic, but from here on out I’ll just use double “ss” as I’m way too lazy to go digging in the special characters menu every time I type it.)
Jörn reserved a stay at a mountain hut for us (because how can you climb in the Alps and not stay in a hut?) and even offered to pick me up from the train station in Munich. With the great weather forecast, it was going to be a great trip, but as we all know, when mountaineering, you can’t get too complacent. Just when everything seems to be going well is exactly when something is going to go wrong! And so, when I landed after a long flight from Seattle, it became clear that my suitcase with all my clothing and mountaineering equipment hadn’t made my connection and was stuck on the wrong side of the Atlantic. Tragic!
Quickly, we came up with a plan for this contingency, fueled by a somewhat generous reading of Air Canada’s lost baggage policy: We’d stop at a shop on the way on the way to the trailhead and buy or rent whatever gear I couldn’t do without or borrow from Jörn, hopefully to be reimbursed later. After a lovely night at Jörn’s apartment, where he and his wife were incredibly kind hosts (homemade pizza!), we headed off.
Trying boots on at a preposterously overpriced mountain gear shop.
Armed with 500 euros worth of overpriced new gear (that was a pair of boots, a t-shirt, and a pair of hiking pants), drove through countless picturesque alpine towns to the trailhead, where we immediately received a sweet view of our objective. After a few hours of pleasant hiking past several other huts, we arrived at the Glorerhütte, a lovely Austrian mountain hut constructed in 1877 that was to be our accommodations for the evening.
Our first view of the Grossglockner from the trailhead.
Jörn approaching the Glorrehütte. Notice the tramway at right for hauling supplies (not people) up from the valley bottom.
It was still early in the afternoon, so we headed out for a lovely little stroll over the Kastenegg, which disappointingly is not a type of egg but in fact is a small summit above the hut. We returned to the hut well before the designated 18:00 dinner time. “We cannot be late,” Jörn told me. “Austrians are like strict Germans,” he explained, “and so punctuality is therefore very important.” Dinner was lovely, and it was fun chatting (in a mixture of German in English) with various folks. I headed back up the Kastenegg for some sunset photos before heading to our bunkroom for an early start the following morning.
Evening light on Böses Weibl (at right) as seen from the Kastenegg. I gather that Böses Weibl translates to “evil woman” or similar - no clue how it got that name.
The sun setting above the Glorerhütte, with Grossglockner in the middle of the image. Our route the next day would go up the valley on the right, then climb up to hit the skyline at the second rightmost pass, then roughly follow the skyline to the summit.
At the unpleasant hour of 2:30, our alarm went off. The Glorerhütte doesn’t host as many climbers as some of the other huts in the area, and so we were up many hours before any of the other denizens, who had smartly decided to give us a private bunkroom so that we wouldn’t wake them up with our departure. The cook, in fact, had seemed mildly offended that we would be missing breakfast. We started hiking by headlamp, with a sky full of stars above us. We followed easy trail for a few hours, passing another hut, before the sky started to brighten. Just before sunrise we reached the first challenge of the day, 150 meters of via ferrata to reach the Hohenwartscharte, the pass above the Hohenwartskees glacier, which would provide us access to the rest of the route. The bottom of the via ferrata was the steepest, and we had a great view of the morning light spreading across the mountains below us as we climbed up beefy metal rungs towards the pass.
Jörn hiking towards the Hohenwartskees glacier in the predawn light. The Hohenwartscharte is in the middle of the skyline, with the Grossglockner at left.
Jörn climbing up snow to the base of the via ferrata, as the first light of the day hits the mountains below us.
The metal rungs of the via ferrata climbing up into the distance.
We reached the Hohenwartscharte quickly, and from there we could see all the way past the Adlersruhe to the summit of the Grossglockner, where the more technical climbing was located. Up until this point, we hadn’t seen a soul, but ahead of us our route would join the more popular routes, and, being a popular climb, we were worried about traffic jams on the narrow ridge climb to the summit. We could already see parties roping up at the base of the technical climbing on the summit pyramid. The Adlersruhe is a gentle subsummit about 350 meters below the true summit of the Grossglocker, and is home to the Erzherzog Johann Hütte, which many parties spend the night at for a short summit push.
A panorama from the Hohenwartscharte, looking south.
On the far side of the pass, we cruised along easy and well-trodden snow towards the Adlersruhe, with amazing views down to the massive Pasterze Glacier, the largest glacier in the eastern Alps. By the time we were approaching the summit pyramid, we could see a conga line of parties bunched up on the handlines on the face. Jörn and I were able to solo past many of them until the route reached the top of the face and climbed ridge towards the false summit. The ridge climbing was an easy but very exposed mixture of ice and rock with amazing airy views in all directions, but, because it was so narrow, passing people become a good bit trickier. With some patience, though, we reached the false summit Kleinglockner, only a few meters shorter than the true summit. We descended a fixed line into the saddle between the false and true summits, then roped up for the most exposed section of the ridge, balancing across a narrow ice bridge with hundreds of meters of exposure on either side. A few dozen meters of low angle ice took us to the true summit, with its beautiful metal cross.
Jörn walking towards the Adlersruhe. You can see the Erzherzog Johann Hütte on the skyline below and to the left of the summit of Grossglockner.
A veritable conga line of climbers on the route up the summit pyramid.
Jörn just a few meters below the summit of Grossglockner.
We opted to stay roped up for more of the descent, which was very slow. We encountered a gentleman who, woefully unprepared, had attempted to climb the mountain without partners or even a rope, and had gotten into a bit of a sticky situation when he realized that downclimb is quite a bit more challenging than ascending. We offered to let him join our rope team, which further slowed our progress as we needed to stop frequently to let other descending parties pass. Nonetheless, we made it down to the fixed lines at the base of the summit pyramid, from where our new companion could belay himself, and we cruised down to the easier slow below, relieved to be off the crowded technical terrain. From there, we retraced our steps back to the Hohenwartscharte, down the via ferrata, and back down the trail to the Glorerhütte.
Jörn hiking down the trail above the Salmhütte.
At the hut, as we repacked our overnight gear, I came to the horrifying realization that I had failed to update my sunscreen application technique to account for my lack of hat, and my forehead was solidly sunburned. What better way to show up at a professional conference than with a peeling forehead?! This realization also prompted the learning of my new favorite German word: Krebsrot, which translates "to “Cancer red,” as in the color of my forehead (thanks Helene for teaching me that one :)
Lovely mountain views from the trail below the Glorerhütte.
Epilogue: Upon recounting the story behind my sunburned forehead to a colleague at my conference, he pointed out that the last time we had chatted, it had been at CSCW last October in Costa Rica, where I had recounted to him the story of attempting to paraglide before the conference and breaking open an ant nest in a tree, causing my entire body to be swarmed by angry ants. When my advisors told me that conferences are good opportunities to build my reputation amongst colleagues, I’m not quite sure that’s what they meant.