We'd intended to climb the Vöcklabrucker Pfeiler on Brunnkogel, but the late season season made the approach so difficult that we ended up on the Nordwestgrat by mistake. After a lot of confusion in the mist we decided to head back down, at which point the weather promptly cleared. A good day's hike, if not a very productive climbing day.
Clay landed in Munich and hopped on a train to Salzburg at lunchtime. The südgrat route above Schober is a prominent line rising from the Red Bull HQ at Fuschl below. A lovely choice for a sunny afternoon, with no real difficulties except for one stiff pitch of 7 up a steep finger crack on the final headwall.
A short morning on the Grünstein Klettersteig to put the new rucksack concept of Jeremy Cabaret through it's paces. For more info, take a look at https://impetrogear.com/.
One final adventure to finish of a week with the boys, and so I returned to the Grandlspitz klettersteig for my first proper kletterski combo. We were a little nervous about the continuity of the late season snow patches, so climbed the route in crampons and ski boots but left our skis below - a wise decision given the huge gaps in the snowfield on the descent. However, the walk down was still the most dangerous part of the route, with a huge runout below. It would be probably been much safer on skis after all!
Back to Attersee for a second consecutive day, this time for a lap of the 1.2km long klettersteig on the huge north facing wall of Mahdlgupf. A long, sweaty workout pulling on metal pegs, admiring climbing lines on the adjacent faces that are way too hard for us.
After we abandoned Zermatt, we all took the train to sunny weather in the mountains around Salzburg. Will, Will & Cameron went for a short climb on the Adlerspitze, whilst I went for a long hike up to the summit of Brennerin just east of Attersee. The last of the winter's snow will linger for a good while yet.
