Snow instead of Jesolo

Bikes retrieved from the mountain by stranded schoolchildren

The Tyrolean mountain rescue team had an unusual mission on Saturday - they brought bicycles down from the Jöchl into the valley.(Bild: ZOOM Tirol)

The action caused a shake of the head: A group of German schoolchildren and their teachers and other accompanying persons were stranded in the Tyrolean mountains, some of which were still wintry, instead of in the seaside paradise of Jesolo on the Upper Adriatic. The planned crossing of the Alps on bicycles went badly wrong - on Saturday morning the mountain rescue team brought the bikes down to the valley.

The eleven students, two teachers and five accompanying persons who wanted to ride their bikes over the Heilige Geistjöchl (2658 meters) to South Tyrol on Thursday, but had to be rescued by the Libelle Tirol police helicopter and the Mayrhofen mountain rescue team, had left their bikes behind on the Jöchl.

Transport by helicopter far too expensive
The Mayrhofen mountain rescuers therefore launched an unusual mission in the early hours of Saturday morning: after all, the bikes had to get back down to the valley somehow! And because the group of schoolchildren had long since returned home to Bavaria and a helicopter rescue would have been many times more expensive, the two-wheelers were retrieved on foot.

Rocky terrain and snowfields
At 6 o'clock in the morning, 14 rescue workers climbed 800 meters up to the Heiligen Geistjöchl from the Zillergründl in foehn and therefore uncomfortable conditions. From there, they carried or pushed the heavy mountain bikes over boulders, numerous steep snow fields and on the trail down to the Hohenaualm at the end of the Zillergründl reservoir.

The route over the Heilige Geistjöchl would have been practically impossible on bikes, even if the conditions had not been perfect. The Hundskehljoch would have been more suitable.

Andreas Eder von der BR Mayrhofen

One or two mountain rescuers had to carry or transport two mountain bikes. The rescue teams then took the bikes from the mountain pasture to Mayrhofen by car. All in all, the operation took six hours.

Mountain rescue billed, costs for helicopter too?
The operation will certainly be expensive. The mountain rescue team will charge around 4000 euros, as the head of operations Andreas Eder from BR Mayrhofen explained to the "Krone" newspaper on Saturday. Whether the group will also have to pay for the helicopter rescue (gross negligence?) is not yet known. In the event of this happening, however, there is the threat of a hefty bill.

End of the line in the Alps instead of sun, beach and sea
The group was supposed to cycle from Furth in Lower Bavaria across the Alps in Tyrol to the Lido of Jesolo in Italy. The group of students had already set off on this tour from their home country on Tuesday.

But instead of crossing the Alps, they ended up in the Alps! In contrast to the destination of Jesolo, winter conditions still prevail in some parts of Tyrol's mountains. "Due to the snow conditions above 2000 meters above sea level - in some places there is still half a meter of frozen snow - they had to carry their bikes. And because the conditions at the highest point and also on the south side of the mountain were no better, the group leader aborted the tour and made an emergency call." 

The 18 exhausted people were finally rescued unharmed by the crew of the police helicopter and dropped off at the Sulzenalm, where they were picked up by the Mayrhofen mountain rescue team and escorted safely down into the valley. On Friday, they took the bus back to Bavaria.