Ari, Pedro, and I left Lindau on a hot Wednesday and drove to Munich where we met Josep for lunch, and a follow up ice cream as we walked down to the river. We continued to our Air BnB in Flachau in the afternoon.
The following day we drove North retracing our steps from a few years ago, driving along the toll road leading towards the Wolfgangsee, this time stopping at the Postalmklamm Klettersteig. This is an interesting looking klettersteig that we spied while sifting through options in the area. It traverses along the side of a big ravine, crossing it from time to time before heading steeply up to the road above.
It was another hot summer’s day and although it was 30 degrees or so at the parking area it was shady and cool in the ravine. We walked down from the car and crossed a swing bridge, clipping into the metal rope. The klettersteig followed the true right of the ravine to begin with. There were plenty of metal stakes in the wall creating a path along the side of the rock. In some ways it’s a shame to have a ferrata route in such an interesting natural feature but it is good fun to use. We crossed the ravine by a rope bridge and a family with a young boy let us pass them resulting in a complicated dance of clipping and unclipping carabiners. In places the rock was wet which increased the chance of slipping but the klettersteig was not too difficult and it wasn’t a big issue.
We came to an unusual feature. The route crossed the ravine in a narrow section and the idea was to jump from one side to the other. Ari isn’t a huge fan of this sort of thing. She held onto the metal safety rope and swung into the middle but her safety carabiner was too tight and she couldn’t pull herself further. I grabbed her and pulled her a bit and she made it to the other side. We continued crossing the ravine, another three times choosing to take the left of two routes up to the “Große Badewanne” (the big bathtub). We sweated our way steeply out of the canyon, noticing the difference the direct sunlight made. Pedro was becoming a Große Badewanne himself and streams of sweat were running down his legs. The big bathtub was not really quite so big as the waterfall above only had a trickle of water. Despite this, I submerged myself in the cold water which looked suspiciously yellow, due to the lack of flow.
After taking a break, we continued up steeply through the forest. There was no rope here, just a walking path that lead in many confusing directions, one of them leading to the base of a cliff. Here the route split in two. The left was the easy exit and to the right there was a D section and an F variant. We took a look at the F variant, more out of interest than out of a desire to do it. It ascended directly up the rock and out over the roof of a small overhang. No thank you. We decided to give the D section ago which proved enough for us. Pedro switched to tarzan mode, shouting and grunting as he pulled himself up the wall. I wanted to stop to take photos of the difficult section but he was keen to keep moving so we stopped a couple of times later when the route became easier. We had a good view out from the side of the rock across to the hills on the other side of the ravine and down to the tops of the trees below us. It felt quite “luftig” with plenty of free space between us and the ground below.
The route continued up to the right and we crossed a section which I didn’t like much. A large section of rock was trying to fall away from the wall and was being held back by a number of steel ropes. The height didn’t bother me but I felt less trusting of this section held together with string, like the rock might break out of its rope cage and tumble away below me. Another pull up a steep section and we were at the top. We took a break then followed the path upwards and then back down to the car.
We headed down to the Wolfgangsee and went swimming before driving around the edge of the lake in search of a restaurant for dinner. All the restaurants were full so we drove back to Flachau stopping on the way for a Mexican meal instead.
