Hey climbers!
It was Monday. I was at a press event in Holešovice and in the free time I wanted to check the weather for Tuesday just to know what I’d wear the next day. When I opened the weather app, instead of Prague, Gosau popped at me. It was 26 degrees & sunny there. Out of curiosity I checked how it looked like for the whole week and that’s how the adventure started.
When I got home from the event, I packed everything in a couple of minutes and an hour later I was sitting in the car in the direction of Gosau. It was 6pm when I hit the road. I didn’t even have any plan. At a gas station, when I was getting fuel, I quickly opened the internet to book a hotel in Berchtesgaden, which is just an hour from Gosau. I arrived at the hotel just before midnight, sat down on bed, opened my laptop and began to search.
It didn’t take long and the plan for the next day was done. Conquer Donnerkogel.
Um, another boring mountain, for which the crazy girl drives for five hours.
Not at all. This is something special! There’s a ferrata that doesn’t really give people a safe impression, and that’s actually what convinced me.
I was gonna get to Gosau very early in the morning and take the first cable car, but I overslept AF. It was about 12 when I was parking the car at the lower cable car station at Gosause. Btw I didn’t expect so many cars on a Tuesday, however I had to park my car about 1 km away from the lake because all the parking places were totally full. I took a cable car at 12.40pm, which took me to Gablonzerhutte. From there I walked.
A ferrata leads to the top of Donnerkogel, which is the route you take on the way up. For the way down, you need to use a different path, which is just pure walking. If you don’t feel like climbing, you can also use the regular path on the way up. From Gablonzerhutte the path is nicely marked, I just overlooked the ferrata start, so I feel like it’s a good idea to describe it, so you guys don’t get lost like me. It took me about 20 minutes to figure out the start of the climb.
Even though there is a sign showing “klettersteig”, but you can’t really tell what it’s pointing at. If you walk up from Gablonzerhutte, you’ll find a kind of a cattle gate after about 8-10 minutes. Don’t go through this turnstile, turn left just in front of it. There is a tiny path going down to the foot of the mountain. Then you can see cables on the rock.
This ferrata is a B, sometimes C, so not too difficult, but not boring either. Of course the most interesting part is this several meters long ladder that leads through the air and connects Kleiner and Grosser Donnerkogel. Surely nothing for anyone who gets dizzy easily or the ones who are afraid of heights, haha :))) The adrenaline even increases when someone else steps on the ladder (the ladder can carry up to 4 people). When that happens, it shakes up and down but also to the sides. And there is about 500 meters of air underneath you.
It took me about three hours to get to the summit and by the way, I saw only two people during my climb – one at the ladder and the other one on the top, so I even have pictures from this crazy trip! So if you want this ferrata with no people, forget about getting up at 4am and trying to be the first one here. It’s better to wait until all of these people get out and start the climb after lunch.
I wanted to catch the last cable car down, so I didn’t spend more than 10 minutes on the summit and started with the descend. Well I didn’t make it anyway, so I had to improvise. I had two options – walk for another hour and a half down to the car or spend the night somewhere there. The Gablonzerhutte was open, so I paid 20EUR, slept there, and took the first cable car down in the morning.
Anyway, to conclude this, I was back in Prague on Wednesday and managed to be on time for a 12.00 meeting haha:)
Time outside Prague: 42 hours.
Money spent: EUR 20 for the hut + EUR 30 for the hotel + one full tank.
Experience gained: not quantifiable.
E.
