Incidents of Mishaps - Mountain Rescue team reflects on winter season: "A season with various challenges"
Lush meadows in the valley, record-breaking snowfall in the towering Alps: The winter of 2022 in Bavaria brought an uncommon division. The mountain rescue service also felt the shift; while winter sports kicked off early and extended into spring in the peaks, hikers and climbers were trekking uphill simultaneously.
"In the morning, we aided a lost hiker on a snow-free trail, while in the afternoon, we conducted an operation at the summit with a deep layer of snow," Thomas Lobensteiner, the Chairman of the Bavarian Mountain Rescue Service, shared the effects on the rescuers. "During the entire winter, our team leaders, mountain rescuers, and volunteer mountain rescuers had to be incredibly adaptable."
With 550 incidents involving hiking and climbing contributing to 11.8% of the total rescues, accidents while hiking and climbing ranked as the second most frequent reason for the mountain rescue service in the past season, according to Klaus Schädl, the director of the mountain rescue service. In the 2021/2022 winter, often perceived as a pandemic season, the frequency of these incidents exceeded expectations with a total of 550. During the previous season, approximately 380 such incidents occurred and in 2020/2021, there were about 440.
Between December 2021 and April 2022, the volunteer rescue teams were dispatched across the region spanning from Oberstdorf to Berchtesgaden and the Bavarian Forest, solving a staggering 4,450 cases. This was a notable 360 more cases than the preceding season.
The rescuers' primary duties lay on ski slopes. They carried out 2,970 interventions associated with skiing and snowboarding – accounting for slightly above half of all interventions. The busiest month was January, marking 1,000 cases for downhill skiing alone.
Away from the slopes, the Bavarian Avalanche Warning Center kept a tab on ten severe avalanche incidents. A fatal situation unfolded on January 14th, at the Linkerskopf in the Allgäu, where a snowboarder was thrown off-balance by a snowboard and subsequently slid into a steep rocky slope.
The mountain rescue service attended to 178 cases involving individuals who were not injured. Incidentally, they occasionally encountered the eccentric. Two youngsters faced a predicament in the Allgäu's Schrecksee - a popular summer photo spot - in a mountain emergency. Initially, a helicopter only delivered necessary equipment for an overnight stay. The following day's rescue revealed that the two carried snowshoes; however, the landscape and Schrecksee were buried beneath an enormous snowdrift.
Read also:
- Despite the unusual division in weather conditions this winter in Bavaria, with record-breaking snowfall in the mountains and lush meadows in the valley, the Mountain Rescue service in Bad Tölz faced a multitude of emergencies and accidents.
- The Spring season witnessed an increase in hiking and climbing incidents, making it the second most frequent reason for the Mountain Rescue service in Germany, accounting for 11.8% of the total rescues.
- During the winter season, the Mountain Rescue team from Bad Tölz, operating in areas spanning from Oberstdorf to Berchtesgaden and the Bavarian Forest, attended to 4,450 cases, a significant increase of 360 from the previous season.
- In the midst of the challenging winter season, with unpredictable weather conditions and numerous emergencies, the Mountain Rescue service in Bavaria also had to respond to incidents not related to winter sports, such as a mountain emergency in Allgäu's Schrecksee when two youngsters found themselves in trouble.
- Coordination with local aid organizations and the Bavarian Avalanche Warning Center played a crucial role in managing emergencies and accidents during the winter season, with the team conducted several operations to prevent and respond to dangerous avalanche situations.
