Also on Monday it rains again and again in Ramsau, the clouds hang low over the valley. The people from the Ramsau mountain rescue service, who want to save a life up there, much higher up, estimate that it is down to about 1000 meters. And who cannot go up to the Hochkalter without putting their own lives at risk. And even if they could fight their way up again over the icy rock and through the chest-high fresh snow on the southwest side of the mighty mountain between the ridge to the summit and the Ofental, somewhere at 2400 or 2500 meters altitude: It would be a huge coincidence if they could see the young man or even hear him shout in these conditions, in the midst of clouds, storm and snow flurry, six degrees below freezing. Because when it rains below, snow falls up there, up to one and a half meters it was probably recently, and the weather service continues to warn of gusts of wind. They still haven’t given up, even though they’ve been looking for the 24-year-old day tripper from Lower Saxony since Saturday afternoon – so far in vain.
The young man’s emergency call was first received at the control center over in Tyrol, because even with the cell phone network it’s not easy on the Hochkalter. He fell during the ascent and slipped far into steep terrain, injuring his head and breaking both arms. That was the first message that the Innsbruckers passed on to the control center in Traunstein, which is responsible for the Berchtesgaden Alps. She immediately sent the local rescue helicopter Christoph 14, which managed to drop two members of the Ramsau mountain rescue service at the lower limit of the clouds in the Ofental 40 minutes after the emergency call. Shortly thereafter, the Ramsau operations manager reached the casualty on the cell phone. Accordingly, although his injuries were not so serious, the situation was still desperate.
With several further mobile phone contacts in the next few hours, the operations manager was able to give the man tips on how to create shelter from the weather and seek shelter from the wind in a hollow or behind a rock. Despite many attempts using different methods, it was not possible to locate the mobile phone more precisely. Even up to the ridge, where the path runs and where there is a better chance of being found, the man, whose strength was evidently failing, could no longer make it himself.
Helicopter flights with the thermal imaging camera are currently not possible
The first mountain rescuers had fought their way up the ridge from the Ofental in the evening, just below the 2607 meter high summit. They hadn’t found the man and were hardly able to communicate with each other in the field, although other units had set up relay stations for the digital radio in the meantime. When the head of operations stopped the search on the south-west flank in a snowstorm and darkness so as not to expose the rescuers to even greater danger, they first had to warm themselves up in an emergency tent for the descent. At the same time, several members of the Ramsau and Berchtesgaden mountain rescue services climbed up other routes, but they too had to turn back around midnight on the icy and snow-covered ridge.
On Sunday at dawn, the rescuers tried again on different routes and had to stop again in the morning. The weather continued to permit no helicopter flights with the thermal imaging camera over the course of Sunday and only a short visual search flight and two short helicopter missions with a Recco probe. Such probes have been stationed in Bavaria since last autumn in Bad Reichenhall and in Sonthofen in the Allgäu. In good conditions, they can not only locate special reflectors that are used in some outdoor equipment, but also mobile phones or a notebook, which the Niedersache man who had an accident apparently had with him. In the best-case scenario, location would even be possible if the batteries of these devices were empty. This gives the Ramsau rescuers hope to still find the 24-year-old as soon as the weather permits search flights in the summit area.
On Monday evening there is still such an opportunity for a good hour: the lower limit of the clouds rises for a while to around 2300 meters, a police helicopter undertakes a search flight with mountain rescuers on board. The fresh snow now seems to be up to three meters high in the gullies below the ridge. The missing person was nowhere to be found until sunset – not even on the recordings, which mountain rescue workers later looked through half the night and analyzed with the appropriate software. The mountain rescue team is still unable to use their Recco buoy. To do this, the helicopter would have to come slightly above the search area, because the probe emits its search signal downwards. The weather forecast for this Tuesday in Ramsau is still bad. The situation should improve on Wednesday, and search flights with the Recco buoy should be possible by Thursday at the latest.
According to a BRK spokesman, the operations manager had the last telephone contact with the exhausted man on Saturday evening. The 24-year-old apparently went on the high mountain tour alone and, according to the BRK spokesman, “didn’t know what he was getting into”. A companion apparently canceled before the train journey to Bavaria. The relatives of the missing person have long since arrived in Ramsau. You will be looked after by a crisis intervention team.