Ice Cold Getaway
It’s one of the hottest days of the year in Merano – at 40°C plus. Matthias Weger plans to escape the heat with an icy swim at 2500 metres. After an arduous climb, he reaches the majestic Lodner summit, towering over Merano. Ahead lies a difficult landing on the melting glacier, a jump into the ice-cold water then a challenging take-off. The adventure pushes Matthias to his limits, but also rewards him with breathtaking beauty.
August 10, 2023, high cloudbase, temperature gradient less than perfect and repeated inversion layers for several days. My rough plan is to cool off in a high mountain lake. I set off from Merano and after almost half an hour manage to sneak through the inversion.
I toyed with the idea of landing on the Lodner summit – the 3228-metre high marble and gneiss pyramid shines brightly over Merano. I land on this summit every year. Three years ago, the summit basin was still covered by a glacier and
much more pleasant to land on.
Year after year the glacier gets smaller; today there’s only a small rib of ice left. The melting glacier has become a small lake. I fly along the summit ridge a few times to find the best landing direction, but as often happens here, the air is pulling up on all sides and rolling over the edge of the summit basin – rotor. I decide to fly on to the plateau and aim for the small snowfield. It is a close call, but it works.
The ice-cold water is as refreshing as I hoped, but also depressing because this might be the last time I find ice on the summit.
Now comes the exciting part... launching from the rugged rocks – with rotoring wind. It takes an hour of struggling but I manage it, then one step over the edge and I am airborne. The price: some broken brake lines.
Fortunately, the glider is still steerable, and I fly to the Timmelsjoch, where I barely make it over the ridge. Will I still make it back home below the inversion layer? I manage to win the battle against the inversion and valley wind and even manage to soar up to the Assenhütte in Merano, to round off the day with a large white beer and a Kaiserschmarren.
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Matthias Weger
Matthias is a whitewater kayaker, mountaineer and freerider from South Tyrol. He can look back on Europe-wide successes in kayaking and is now passionate about mountain sports and paragliding.
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