Trip report: Sudwand (5+)

This long alpine route was at least as mentally demanding as it was physically demanding. In the mostly stable weather of August 1^st, 2018, Melanie and I set off from the Muttekopfhutte hut (1,934 m) at 6:15 AM. The route summits the Hintere Platteinspitze (2728 m) after about 690 m of 5th class climbing.

By 7AM, we had reached the base of the route, marked with a plaque. The route above the plaque is not obvious, except that it climbs the right edge of the white-ish buttress, up a dirty gully. We started with the intention of simul-climbing (or simultaneously climbing) the first several pitches of “easy” climbing. However, after the first pitch, we decided that due to the considerable choss and minimum acceptable protection, it would be best to pitch the climb out as would typically be done. I took the lead at we continued up the gully. Somewhere in the second pitch, we encountered the first bolt (permanent fixed protection) on the route, and were able to follow these for some time. The rock quality gradually improved as we climbed above the heavily weathered rock of the first couple hundred meters. Still, the route required walking across several shelves of very loose rock (and grass), and inevitably we still dropped rocks hundreds of meters down – a scary prospect for those climbing below. However, we were almost certain we were the only ones on route and felt a bit relieved.

Throughout the route, the permanent anchors that we thought would be present, were not, and we were using mobile gear anchors that we’re used to using in traditional climbing. Climbing a mountain this way feels pure but also is mentally demanding. At every step, we were asking ourselves, is this the route? Where was my last protection? Is there protection ahead? How much rope is left? Can I make a belay here? By this point, we had realized that there is no bailing this route. The treacherously loose sections of rock that would be along the rappel path are far too dangerous and making proper rappels would be convoluted and time consuming without proper fixed anchors. We were fully committed to summiting the mountain.

Inevitably, we got off the intended route due to the small amount of information we could find prior, and the fact that most of that was in German! I found myself at the top of a rocky spire, looking down perhaps 15 meters straight down to a very crumbly and dangerous looking gully. Approximately 3m in front of my face, was the perfectly good, beautiful, solid slab that we would be climbing, but there was no way for us to get on it from where I was. I climbed back down, looking for a way around. Luckily, we were able to traverse significantly (about a rope length and a half) around my fallacious gendarme to the base of the slab. The upper slabs were generally far and away the best quality rock on the route, with interesting climbing in the 5- to 5+ (5.8-5.9) range.

We are still not sure if we finished on the intended slab, but after a heady 5+ pitch, we topped out on the southwest ridge of the mountain. At this point, the topo (route description) we had just mentions descending a bit and “Zum Gipfel” 40m to the summit. We found out that what this meant was that we had just over 2 hours of very demanding alpine ridge climbing, weaving up, down, and around the spiny ridge to the summit of Hintere Plattenspitze. Much of this could have been done rope-free, but even here, we encountered section of what was perhaps 4+/5- climbing on exposed rock, and we decided to stay roped. We started with our standard pitched belays, but about halfway through, we switched back to simul-climbing, and sped our progress by an estimated 50%. We reached the summit, with its wooden cross characteristic of the summits of European mountains at just after 5PM. The view from the summit was unbelievably good. Totally worth the effort to get there.

We felt a few drops of rain as the clouds closed in, and started down in a hurry. Luckily, one does not have to rappel the route (It seems one can, but I can’t really imagine doing so and I am not sure why anyone would mention it). Instead, we followed a well marked and cabled path (a klettersteig, or via ferrata) down and along the NW ridge of the mountain, until we joined with the descent path shared with the klettersteig for the Maldenkopf, the adjacent mountain peak. We asked ourselves why the descent could be so clear and well marked when the ascent was so poorly defined.

The descent followed a steep scree slope, and we went “scree-ing,” gliding down with an entourage of pebbles as we moon-walked downwards. Eventually, the scree slope gave way to a grassy path, which we followed back down to the hut. Talking on the way down, we named the mountain the “Choss-schloss” (Choss-palace), but we showed it who was the choss boss! We were just in time to catch the left-overs of dinner at 7:30 PM. We beat the rain home, safely indoors when it started falling.

All in all, this was a fantastic adventure. It was a great learning experience in terms of being prepared for routes with little description, dealing with emotions that come with being lost and on loose rock, and for being a strong team of climbers able to deal with long, demanding days. Next time, we’ll be taking the less chossy way up…