Keeping pace with a certified Austrian mountain guide is no easy task. This is especially true on steep terrain and famous peaks near the guide’s home town. Today, on a fast-and-light alpine traverse and mountain climb, I sucked it up to follow Tom Müllauer of St. Johann, Austria, on a well-known route in the Kaisergebirge mountain range of Austria’s Eastern Alps.
Müllauer, a climber and canyoning specialist, is a member of the adidas Outdoor team. He guides year-round from his base in St. Johann, a village at the foot of the mountain range. Our objective for the day, the 7,400-foot Maukspitze, is a spike of limestone that Müllauer has climbed many times. “Most clients require two days to reach the top,” he told me. Our trip — a whirlwind climb/run up a forested face from a trailhead, west a few miles on a ridge, then straight to the top of Maukspitze — would in the end be measured in hours, not days.
From the start, Müllauer set a blistering pace. (I asked him to do so!) On a steep forest trail, he led for 1,000 vertical feet without stopping once. There were sharp switchbacks and ladders. Iron pegs were hammered into the rock where it was really steep. Blazing uphill, we completed the initial 1,000 feet in less than 20 minutes. “My record is 13 minutes,” Müllauer said on top of the ridgeline. “But that was without a backpack on.”
I was breathing hard and dripping with sweat. I took off a layer despite a cool wind, stuffing the soaked top in my pack. Müllauer pointed into the sky. “That’s Maukspitze,” he said, noting a towering pyramid of limestone that jumped off the ridge a couple kilometers distant. Maukspitze, a popular climb in good weather, was streaked with snow, its apex hidden, decapitated by shifting clouds.
