OE/OO-217 Grünalmkogel · OE/OO-033 Brunnkogel · OE/OO-051 Brennerin
Crossing the Höllengebirge, with a night on the summit
Three summits along the ridge, each higher than the last. Staying up top instead of descending — and getting the same light twice, from both sides of the day.
The Höllengebirge is a plateau, not a ridge. Between Lake Traunsee and Lake Attersee lies a high plain where the summits seem to grow out of the ground rather than rise from it. That’s exactly what makes a traverse possible: stay up top instead of going back down each time.
Three summits, upward
| Brennerin | OE/OO-051 | 1,602 m | 6 points |
| Brunnkogel | OE/OO-033 | 1,708 m | 6 points |
| Grünalmkogel | OE/OO-217 | 1,821 m | 8 points |
The first two on the twelfth. The third early on the thirteenth. Twenty points, and each summit a good hundred metres higher than the last — the traverse climbs rather than rolls.
The evening
By 21:23 the sun was already below the horizon. The lake lay as a bright surface between the ridges, night-blue above it, the plain below with its first lights. What looks like a thin strip in the photo is all that’s left of the daylight.
Anyone still up here at this hour has made a choice.
The night
The summit cross on the Grünalmkogel stands in guy wires like a transmission mast — and is built from the same kind of lattice work. Below it a tent, sleeping bags in the grass, someone already up and looking east.
There isn’t much to say about it. You just have to set off early enough and stay late enough.
The morning
Eight hours later, the same direction, from the other side of the day. The sun comes up behind the ridge and lays rays across the dwarf pines.
Then the last summit — and at 1,821 metres, the highest of the round.
73 · OE5SOS