Watzmann Family Traverse
My climbing dream started in Germany. Specifically, in the Alps of Berchtesgaden. I climbed Jenner. There I saw a wonderful mountain just in the opposite side. It was always hidden behind the clouds. And I could tell that it was absolutely higher and harder. I knew it was Watzmann, the second highest peak of Germany.
This was my pity in Germany. I could not climb it. I went away like a fool. I knew I had only one pair of Li-Ning sports shoes. I knew "Ich habe leider keine Zeit". I knew attempting it at that time was bound to be tough. So I set it as my dream ever since (until later I found that some other mountains were much more difficult and interesting, say Mount Siguniang). But Watzmann did lead me into the world of mountaineering.
Yesterday when I was going through the Piolet d’Or index, I found one ascent of Watzmann in the list of "significant ascents of 2018".
On 11 January 2018 Ines Papert and Luka Lindic made what is likely to be the first winter traverse of the Watzmann (2713 m), Berchtesgaden Alps. They said that they did this as a preparation for their Shishapangma expedition. They chose this because no infomation could be found, which made them more excited. First they started from the northeast ridge of Kleine Watzmann in the morning. Then they started descending and started traversing all of the five Watzmann kids. They decided to climb to Watzmann Mittelspitze directly from the ridge when descending the fifth kid. Later they descended to Watzmann Haus via the normal route.
Route: Watzmann Family Traverse
Location: Eastern Alps, Berchtesgaden, Bayern, Germany
Route description: north-east ridge to Kleine Watzmann - descent on south-west ridge from Kleine Watzmann - traverse of all five Watzmann Kids - east face of Watzmann Mittelspitze - descent via traverse to Hocheck and normal route to Watzmann House.
Time: 3.45 a.m. - 11.10 p.m. from car to car (Parking lot Hammerstiel Schönau am Königssee ) 19h 25min
Vertical meters: 3458 m
Most details about that ascent in this article are from Planetmountain.