Geierköpfe Hike

Published on 2009-9-5 by Michael Stanton

Geierköpfe

September 5, 2009

Sigh. Some days you just have to pay the piper. The climb itself was fun. I turned up a dirt road to park on the east side of the Geierköpfe, and my plan was to climb over it's three summits, pick up one more summit then descend to the west and hitch a ride back to the car from near the Plansee. I parked right near a truck. The trail was very rugged, rooty and thin, sometimes someone had put an old rope where there was a landslide. After climbing about 500 meters vertical I finally emerged on the south side of the mountain. A herd of elk decorated the beautiful slopes. I headed straight up, making for the notch between the east and central summits. I soon dealt with fresh snow on the heather and scree. Once on the ridge, it was a fantastic walk and jog on a satisfyingly thin crest. I passed the middle summit, then got into some serious scrambling terrain on snowed-up rock. I didn't have gloves, and my fingers were freezing as I tried to find a safe way to traverse a cliff and reach safer heather on the other side. Several possibilities just weren't safe enough. Finally I found one that just barely worked. After that, gaining the west summit was easy, though it required caution due to ice. Although I worried about the rest of the way, it was no problem to reach peak X (?).

From there I raced down, then at a small closed hut I saw my first people of the day. I traversed the "Devil's Valley", then followed an unnerving trail in switchbacks down to the road near the Plansee. This trail was kind of frightening: A boot-wide track on wet grass slopes, so steep that I couldn't even see the next switchback about two body lengths below. Definitely a trail that could kill you!

Once on the road, I stuck out my thumb and really expected to get a ride. Boy was I wrong! It's been a while since I hitch-hiked. I used to do it in Icicle Creek Canyon back in Washington State. Once three nice older ladies picked me up. They told me about their hike and I told them about mine. But here I was passed for more than an hour's boring walk on the road by one Mercedes and BMW after another. I tried everything I could think of to appear friendly and harmless. No dice. Once I thought these two men stopped for me, but when I approached their car they waved me away. Boy, that was a disappointing episode. Dan and I always pick up hitchhikers if we have the room. Once on our way to the Ortler North Face we gave a ride to an old Italian woman in the middle of nowhere. She had lived there her whole life, and that was an interesting story.

But these several dozen carloads full of people were just too squeamish to take any risk.

Anyway, I reached the dirt road to find a gate closed and locked over it. I nearly bawled, because I knew the score: no cell phone, no money, and now no car. It's going to be a long, long day starting now. (BTW the hike was about 4.5 hours, 1200 meters elevation gain/loss, 10 miles or so of walking, lots of 3rd/4th class scrambling on scruffy, snowy terrain.)

I drove my car up to the gate, then walked a mile back on the road to a restaurant. I explained my problem and they made a couple of phone calls to find someone who could open the gate. I spend a few euros on cake and coffee, and they were nice enough to let me call Kris and tell her my "morning hike" had been shot to hell (It's now 1:30 in the afternoon).

After an hour the hunter arrives, the same one who owned the truck I parked near. He gives me an obligatory chewing out ("Are you blind?" he said when I told him I didn't see the gate. It was a pole that goes across the road, but when up it is fairly well hidden in the trees). Then he settled in for an hour of coffee with the restaurant staff. Finally he took me back to my car. He had already opened the gate, darn, I could have just walked back! Oh well.

He also gave me a lot of grief about my tennis shoes and how you can't wear those in mountains. Sigh. Fine.

Hopefully later the actual hike will come back in my memory, right now all the stupid stuff seems more real. :-(