I arrived in Munich on Thursday morning from Kraków, spending the day navigating to my hostel and finding some vitamin-c to fight off the bacteria that comes from sharing a room with 10 strangers.
After a good night of sleep, Alex (a friendly British alpinist that I met on a UK climbing forum) picked me up and we began the 2 hour drive to Bavaria. As it often is with climbers, we became fast friends and spent much of our driving time discussing climbing, philosophy, and cultural differences in America and the UK.
We arrived to the town of Reichenbach on Friday afternoon and used the remaining daylight hours to hike to the base of the Rubihorn. After determining the conditions looked good, we had a beer in town and then headed to the car park to sort out gear. Alex and I scarfed down some pasta, divided the gear, and filled our packs with some water, a light rack, and one half rope for each of us. Fortunately rebelliousness is not a trait specific to American climbers, so we set up our sleeping bags on the ground beneath the "No Camping" sign (to be fair, it was in German, so we can't really know what it said).
At 0515 we were up—I struggled to put in my contacts while Alex brewed some coffee. We reached the base of the route in roughly an hour and a half, with the sun coming up just as we donned our crampons and helmets. From the belay, Alex lead up ~60m of easy terrain with a few mixed moves before cruising through some easy snow.
Pitch two was more moderate snow mixed with a few mixed moves. From this belay, Alex offered me the lead into what we approximated to be some easy M1/M2 terrain. In a cruel twist of fate, a few hooks pulled me up to a ledge and into the first M4 crux section of the route.
I did my best to maneuver through chossy, unconsolidated limestone, but the warm temperatures meant that nothing was staying put. I shouldered my tools and jammed my way up a chimney to a small notch, finding the next sequence of crux M4 mixed moves. With the lack of good pro, I wasn't feeling overly heroic and instead opted to build my belay here.
Alex followed the pitch, acknowledged the "good effort", and pulled his way through the final crux and into easy terrain. From the belay, we decided to stash the ropes and solo the rest of the route—from here it was mostly 45 ° snow with a few sections of 50 °.
After a few hundred meters the boot-pack through moderate snow turned to a few moves on snow covered rock and turf. Alex climbed up to a good stance and offered to drop me a rope, which I gladly accepted. Back on belay, I climbed past Alex to scope out the terrain ahead of us. I pulled up past a few sections of frozen turf beneath the snow and dropped the rope back down to Alex. Feeling good about the rest of the terrain, I pulled off my outer jacket and we started cruising up more 45 ° snow towards the summit.
Near the top of the Rubihorn we soloed a handful of sections of mixed moves with lots of frozen turf, an experience that Alex assured me was very reminiscent of Scottish winter climbing. Before long, we found ourselves pulling the final moves onto the summit and enjoying a break beneath the summit cross. We completed the route in 3 hours from bottom to top.
Refueled, Alex and I began our descent, wrapping around the back side of the Rubihorn and dropping into a hidden basin above Gaissalpfall.
It was roughly a 1 hour and 45 minute descent back to the car park, mostly meandering through deep snow in the hanging basin.
With a successful summit of the Rubihorn, we were feeling good and ready to prep for the next objective. Unfortunately, the mountains don't always cooperate. After driving 2 hours to check out other peaks, we were met with abysmal conditions. In a last ditch effort, we found ourselves in the Tannheim Valley in Austria beneath the Gimpel. With a high stoke, we spent the night beneath what can only be assumed as yet another "No Camping" sign. Despite our optimism, the 400m we hiked to approach the route through a ski resort soon became thigh deep snow, and we opted to pack it in and try again in better conditions.
Alex and I made it back to Munich, got some much needed showers, and shared beers and climbing stories in a Bavarian beer hall. I'm writing this post from the Munich Central Bus station, waiting for my overnight bus to Berlin. Back to the responsibilities of real life, I suppose. But I can't complain—I'm off to Berlin to begin my spring studies.
Till the next climb.
Gear notes
-2x 60m half ropes
-Single rack of BD .5-2
-WC Offset wires
-2 Ice screws (not used)
-Bulldog (not used)
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