Stadlwand is one of the biggest limestone walls in Höllental. It is located on the southern part of Schneeberg, but doesn’t continue to the top of the mountain. The top of the wall is at 1407 meters.
There are a plenty of good-looking routes on the wall, but we decided to climb one of the easiest and longest ones. We started with the direct start to Richterweg, then climbed Richterweg and continued to the top via Stadlwandgrat. This continuous buttress/ridge is altogether about 800 meters (25 pitches) long and the hardest parts are around UIAA 5. Nothing too difficult, but it's still a lot of climbing.
Racking up the gear…40 meters of rope, 40 draws, 4 cams, 2 nuts, 2 tri-cams, 5 slings...
The approach takes an hour
Richterweg
Advanced top roping skills
The route follows a buttress, but the direct start is not too obvious. The directions in the guidebook are quite detailed, and there was even a metal wire to show the starting point. Still, there was a Hungarian couple that was about to do the same route as we but wasn't sure where to start. We were pretty sure where the route would go, and started to climb. The other party was still not convinced and decided to bail even before starting the route.
Higher up on Richterweg
Stadlwandplatte on the left side of the buttress looks very good
I run out of ropemans but tiblocs works as well for simul climbing. They are less safe but better than nothing.
Richterweg turns into Stadlwandgrat
Very nice scrambling
Anu on the last pitch of Stadlwandgrat. It’s nice to have routes like this only 85 km from home.
We simul climbed the route in 5 hours, stopping three times to gear up. 40 draws was a bit overkill compared to 4 cams… For some reason I thought that there would be more bolts. Next time (for simul climbing) I would take 30 draws (10 x 60cm), 10 extra biners, 8 cams, and 10 slings (120cm), and also a few 200cm slings. Nuts and tricams are slow to use and don’t work with ropemans so I wouldn’t take those. A 30-meter rope would have been better for simul climbing, but we decided to take 40-meter rope in case we would need to rappel.
Misfortune of the day: They don’t sell beer at the top! The descent starts from here, following an easy path through the forest.
The never-ending ridge seen from the walk down
It was a very hot day, +30 degrees and a south face. I run out of water on the last pitches of Stadlwandgrat, but luckily we found some water on the way down.
A river in Höllental, right next to the parking
This felt pretty good
Yet another kick-ass day in eastern Alps. Prost!
