Mountain rescuers rescue lost ice climbers – salzburg.ORF.at
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After an involuntary night in the longest ice fall in Austria in the stop valley in Bad Gastein (Pongau), two ice climbers alerted the mountain rescue team on Monday morning. The two Poles were finally brought unharmed to the valley in a costly rescue operation.
The two athletes, aged 34 and 39, climbed the “Mordor” ice climbing fall in the ice arena in the starting valley on Sunday. At 315 meters long, the frozen waterfall is one of the longest in Austria. The climbers reported that it was getting dark and they could no longer see the descent in the steep, rocky and icy terrain, says mountain rescue site and operations manager Roland Pfund.
Trained ice climber with good equipment
The well-equipped and fit Poles therefore spent the night on the Höhkar. “During the night, however, it snowed heavily there and the ice climbers found no tracks for a safe descent in the morning either. That’s why they alerted us,” said Pfund.
Six hours mountain rescue operation in extreme weather
In fog and heavy snowfall, eight mountain rescuers from Gastein climbed up to the athletes, “The conditions were adverse and the snow was waist-deep on the extremely steep ice and rocky terrain. We finally found her unharmed around 10 a.m. and accompanied her down almost 200 meters, insured, for her own descent,” says Pfund. The two Poles could finally be taken down to the valley, exhausted but unharmed. The rescue operation lasted a total of six hours.