Schüsselkarspitze, 11th / 12th July 2009

After several weekends in a row of really wet weather I was all too ready to read a little more into a slightly more optimistic weather forecast for the north side of the eastern Alps than turned out to be justified.

The Hohe Munde seen from the Schüsselkarspitze

Ingo Peter and I stayed in the Wangalm, on the south side of the Wetterstein, but after a cold rainy night we were not in a hurry to get started. By half past ten we were standing at the bottom of the Locker vom Hocker slab on the Schüsselkarspitze wondering at first where the Meßner / Sint route could go, and then, once we had excluded all other possibilities, whether the guidebook grade of VI+ could really be right. It was cold and misty, and after an hour and a half of sitting there shivering we gave up waiting for the weather to get better and went off to do the Leberle on the Scharnitzspitze.

The first three pitches of this were straightforward, but the fourth turned out to be good value for IV. As it was it started to rain and then to hail as Ingo seconded this pitch, and soon the rock was soaking wet. After a while the rain stopped and our friends Mario Senke and Felix Lütkenherm appeared below. However, after an hour of standing shivering at the belay the rock was showing no signs of getting any dryer, so we abbed and that was that.

Ingo Peter on the 4th pitch of the Leberle on the Scharnitzspitze

Sunday went even worse. Ingo and I didn't get anything done at all, although Mario and Felix got up the Leberle on the Scharnitzspitze. We bumped into Arnaud Richel and climbing partner who wanted to do a route called Steiler Zahn just to the right of the Meßner / Sint, although they didn't end up getting up that either.