In the foothills of the Alps, this outrageously beautiful season has just begun again, when the landscape looks like a painting by Franz Marc. Up on the northern slopes of the mountains the snow still lies as if brushed on, while down below nature indulges in youthful intoxication. Everything is fluttering, sprouting and chirping so that you would like to rush straight to the sports shop to get a new piece of equipment. Anything, bring it on, like a spare battery or hiking pants or at least a backpack. It’s about signaling to yourself and the world that you are ready to set off into the mountains.
In the next few days, it will finally be my turn to climb the Soiernspitze, which is 2,257 meters high behind Lake Walchen. She stands there, still unconquered. Once in May, two young adventurers failed at her, one of whom had just bought heavy mountain boots, but the other was out and about with his old confirmation shoes because he fundamentally rejected consumption and the Luis Trenker fuss. In the firn field below the summit, the anti-consumerist fell on his face every five meters, so that the bootlegger refused to take him one step further. After all, both of them made it back down to the valley safely, and without a mountain rescue service.
In Berchtesgaden, the sun and old snow attracted two people from the more horizontally oriented Münsterland to the mountains at Pentecost. Their plan was even more stupid than that of the young adventurers: They wanted to cross the Watzmann, which is a risk even in summer without snow. When they finally got lost, they called the mountain rescue service. They came with 16 mountain rescuers and two helicopters – and after hours managed to fly the two into the valley. But because they had to leave their sleeping bags behind, the Munsterlanders were dissatisfied with the way their rescue went: In the valley, they complained that they had never been treated so badly as patients – and rushed off insulted.
On behalf of the two, thanks are due to the mountain rescue service. She often has to fetch puppet heads from the mountain, and she would certainly have brought down the consumer opponents back then too. I will do my best to get up and down the Soiernspitze without her help. Promised.