Two stray tourers got stuck in the dangerous crash area south of the Reither Spitze in Tyrol on Sunday. They were rescued almost at the last minute by the Libelle Tirol and the mountain rescue service Seefeld.
The two experienced locals planned to climb from Seefeld to the Harmelekopf and then descend east of the Reither Spitze through a gully towards the Eppzirler Alm. Of course – in the Reither Spitze area you may have lost your bearings in the fog. As a result, they headed south through the wrong gully before getting stuck in steep crash terrain filled with frozen waterfalls. In the late afternoon they finally sounded the alarm.
Time was running out
“We were notified by the Tyrol control center around 3:30 p.m.,” said Andreas Wanner, local manager of the Seefeld mountain rescue service. Coincidentally, three Seefelder mountain rescuers were privately out in the area that day and were already safely back in the valley.
“One of them, Lukas Wimmer, contacted me. He feared that a terrestrial rescue would be extremely difficult,” says operations manager Wanner. Time was of the essence, especially as the climbers were already drenched and the approaching darkness made rescue by helicopter more difficult by the minute.
Reconnaissance flight with mountain rescuers
The three mountain rescuers from Seefeld, who were already in the area that day, then took off on a reconnaissance flight with the Libelle Tirol police helicopter. They discovered the touring duo at the bottom of a fog bank at an altitude of about 1500 meters.
Pilot Hans Schlager and the crew of the Libelle Tirol then managed to rescue the two alpinists with a rope. He flew the uninjured to the parking lot of the Rosshütte cable car, from where they had departed. Mountain rescuer Wanner has a lot of respect for the Libelle crew: “That was a remarkable achievement.”
Terrestrial salvage would have been tricky
An earthly rescue at night would have been an extremely delicate undertaking. “We have very good climbers in the local office, but they should have pushed themselves to their limits,” says Wanner.
Source: Krone
I am Wallace Jones, an experienced journalist. I specialize in writing for the world section of Today Times Live. With over a decade of experience, I have developed an eye for detail when it comes to reporting on local and global stories. My passion lies in uncovering the truth through my investigative skills and creating thought-provoking content that resonates with readers worldwide.
