The hilariously named Loser mountain has by far my favourite Klettersteig to date. The Panorama-Klettersteig Sisi features super steep faces, tonnes of exposure and great views across to the Dachstein glacier behind.
Cat and Louise came to visit for the weekend! We began our multi-activity adventures on the Adlerspitze, whizzing up the Normalweg to have the summit to ourselves before the crowds arrived.
Short rest day after the Großglockner the day before. Ross managed to find all the best feet-off rests. I've done this Klettersteig before, but this time we finished up the Gipfelwand (summit wall). Not recommended if you didn’t enjoy the earlier pitches...
Ross and Clay flew from England for a quick hit ski mountaineering weekend and with perfect conditions forecast we drove south to Kals for a two day ascent of the Großglockner.
On day 1 we skinned up to the Stüdlhütte. The next morning we crossed the glacier and joined the armies of mountaineers bidding for the summit. The view down was stunning; the Großglockner is the most prominent peak in the Alps after Mont Blanc and the spread of peaks below was magical. You can see almost 240km from the summit. Less magical was the final 150m summit ridge - if you’re looking for space, solitude and a clear head in the mountains avoid the Großglockner on a bluebird spring morning.
Snow and poor visibility across the whole of Austria so we did our best to ski the X routes at Kitzsteinhorn.
Our weekend in the Dolomites continued with a tour of Tre Cime di Lavaredo (in German: Drei Zinnen). We hiked to the summit of Monte Campedelle to the south of the peaks on the recommendation of a local guide.
The three peaks marked the Austrian-Italian border until 1919, hence the dual-language names. South Tyrol, the Italian province to the north, has a German speaking majority still today.
