OAV Advanced Rock and Ice Course

Instructors: Peter Habeler and Toni Volgger
Summer 1967
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View Photo Set 1/3 | Set 2/3 | Diary


Berliner Hütte

33T 713761 521174 and 2044m
 
Our course began in from the Berliner Hütte.
Most of the course was based there.

The buildings are huge. Certainly not what one might visualise
from the English language term of "an alpine hut".
 
The photo show part of the vast wood-lined dining room.

There were some fine pigs living in the outbuildings.
 
We looked out in time to see one being carried in on a stretcher.
There was pork for dinner that evening.


The Feldkopf

An imposing sharks tooth of a mountain.
 
3089m

Here we are looking up the snow slopes towards it.
 
The nomal route is along the feature ascending from left to right.
Most of the group took this route.

Two of us were lucky enough to take a direct route with Peter.
 
Piers follows up to Peter.

On the Feldkopf summit.
 
Peter Habeler coils up our rope.

Looking back on the descent.
 
 

A photo of me.
 
Note the mass of black hair!


Instruction in crevasse rescue

There is plenty of good snow and ice in the area.
 
 

Our instructors were
 
Peter Habeler and Toni Volgger.

Here we are on some nice regular seracs.
 
We are setting up the belays.

All ready for a descent down the ice wall.
 
Good for getting the feel of our crampons.

Here is a close-up of the belay on ice screws.
 
That hawser-laid rope must look odd to today's climbers!

Crampons were laced on to standard boots.
 
Ice axe shafts were made of wood!

Peter supervises things from above.
 
 

See the "victim trapped in a crevasse"
 
waiting patiently to be rescued.

At last someone has dropped him a karabiner on a rope loop.
 
Soon he will be hoisted by the Seil Rolle technique.


The Waxeggrat on the Grosse Möseler

The Grosse Möseler is in the centre of the picure.
 
The ridge on the right is the Waxeggrat
Its upper part is a firngrat or snow ridge.

We climbed that ridge and headed for the summit.
 
Here we look back to see our second rope on the firngrat.
I'll bet they were feeling as scared as I was!

Piers walks along the ridge to the summit
 
 

Toni Volgger brings up the second rope.
 
 

Here is the summit of the Grosse Möseler
 
Covered in people from the normal route - all eating lunch.

The views from here are good.
 
My 50mm lens camera does not do panoramic views though.


The Greizer Hütte

We got there by a spectacular route.
 
 

We went up the glacier.
 
The crevasses were terrifying -
I never got the camera out to take photos!

The Greizer Hütte is well situated.
 
32T 719203 5214009 2227m

From it you look across a deep valley to the normal route from the Berliner Hütte
 
Each day a retired mountain guide was walking across there to maintain the path and returning at night.

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View Photo Set 1/3 | Set 2/3 | Diary