Mountain rescuers lead three stranded climbers to safety

Mountain rescuers brought three poorly equipped Danish climbers down from the Hohen Göll in the Berchtesgaden Alps after they became stranded in heavy rain and thunderstorms, ORF reported. The 30 to 40-year-old men were rescued during a night operation that involved 20 members of the Hallein mountain rescue unit.

The group had originally planned to take a roughly two-hour route from the Kehlsteinhaus. Instead, they climbed towards the 2,522-metre summit of the Hohen Göll via the Mandlgrat ridge.

Shortly before the summit, as they exited the Schustersteig route, they made an emergency call. “They were exhausted and hypothermic and could not go any further,” said Christian Schartner, head of the Hallein rescue unit.

The rescuers were alerted shortly before 7 p.m. in poor weather. They first provided the climbers with warmth before accompanying them overnight on the descent to the Purtschellerhaus in Berchtesgaden, Bavaria.

According to Schartner, the men were not suitably equipped for the tour. They were wearing light hiking shoes, were completely soaked and had neither spare clothing nor provisions. “They were not used to tours like this,” he said.

The rescuers secured difficult sections without fixed steel cables with their own ropes. They then guided the exhausted climbers down the via ferrata-like route on a short rope.

“It was a demanding operation for all of us,” Schartner said. The rescue ended at 3 a.m. on Saturday.