Rescuers find two lost teenagers in Austria’s Totes Gebirge

Two 17-year-olds were found uninjured after getting lost in the Totes Gebirge mountain range in Upper Austria, ORF reported. The teenagers had set out for the Pühringerhütte mountain hut and lost their way after darkness fell.

They left Grünau im Almtal at around 5 a.m. on Sunday and reached the hut, at an elevation of 1,637 metres, at about 11 a.m. They spent the afternoon in the surrounding area and, by their own account, lost track of time.

They began descending at around 6 p.m. The male teenager spoke several times with his father, who urged them to hurry because it would be dark in the mountains by about 7.30 p.m. Although they had a headlamp with them, it had no battery, so they initially tried to light the trail with their phones.

At around 11 p.m., they realised they had become lost. The teenager called his father again but could not give him a precise location. The phone then ran out of power, and the father alerted emergency services.

A police helicopter could not take off because of the weather. Mountain rescuers instead headed towards the Sepp-Huber-Steig trail and found the two teenagers shortly after midnight.