Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner and Simone Moro don’t climb the highest mountains in the world without the 77-year-old Austrian’s weather forecasts. How does Karl Gabl deal with this responsibility and what drives him?
Winter 2011 on the flank of Gasherbrum II, an 8034 meter high mountain in the Karakoram. Simone Moro is determined to make the first winter ascent of this peak in Pakistan. The weather is bad, it is stormy and snowing, the temperature drops to minus 48 degrees. Should Moro go home?
The Italian doesn’t think about it. Even if the conditions are apparently bad. Instead, he leaves the tent, starts the climb, and disappears in the storm with his rope team. A risk? No. Because Moro has a helper that he doesn’t want to do without.
This helper is almost 5,500 kilometers away in St. Anton in Tyrol. His name is Karl Gabl, he is a professor of meteorology and a certified mountain guide. He has found a weather window that allows the rope team to climb. Moro says: “Actually, Karl always told me when I should go. He was our fourth rope partner on Gasherbrum.”
Gabl is 77 years old. He says: “I am retired, but not retired.” He still goes to the mountains himself. He says he’s looking for the experience and not the performance. “That’s why it doesn’t bother me that I’ve never been to an eight-thousander.” He tried a few times but abandoned the expeditions for safety reasons. Coming home to his family healthy was always more important to him than mountaineering merits.
From the old wooden room into the wide world
Gabl stands in front of his house in St. Anton. The slopes in the valley are green, the snow shimmers on top of the mountains. Gabl points to a steep wall on the other side of the valley. In 1988, an avalanche thundered into the valley, the cone of which reached his house. The snow is two meters deep, he says: “If you grow up here, you experience the fascination but also the danger of the mountains from an early age.”
Gabl tells his story where he made countless forecasts for expeditions to the highest mountains on earth: in a wooden room with a low ceiling; the building is 350 years old. The cellar is even 500 years old, says Gabl, and ideal for storing red wine. The short man with a mustache and rimless glasses laughs.
Black and white photos of long-deceased family members hang on the wall of the room, and next to them are a few old wooden skis with straps. Outside in the corridor there are many pictures from expeditions, for example they show Moro or Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner.
In 2011, Kaltenbrunner became the first woman to climb all fourteen eight-thousanders without supplemental oxygen, using Gabl’s predictions. The pictures contain expressions of gratitude to the “Weather Angel”. This is what the high-altitude mountaineers call Gabl. He does not charge expeditions any money for his services.
As a boy, Gabl’s parents sent him to boarding school in Feldkirch, to the Jesuit college Stella Matutina – an arch-Catholic. “I was sad every time I had to go back to high school,” says Gabl. He misses the mountains and climbs the Tyrolean peaks on weekends and during his holidays. He developed a passion for mountaineering. In St. Anton there are hardly any climbers or mountaineers other than him; Gabl learns how to use the rope himself. At that time it was an area dominated by agriculture. Hardly anyone sees any point in climbing mountains.
It wasn’t until he was studying in Innsbruck that he met other mountaineers. He met Wolfgang Nairz, who later led Reinhold Messner’s expeditions. Gabl joins the Academic Alpine Association. He says: “The world has opened up to me.”
He takes his time with his studies and prefers to go on expeditions. In 1970, Gabl and fellow students traveled 17,000 kilometers from Innsbruck to Afghanistan in an old bus. There they climb the 7,485 meter high Noshak, the highest mountain in the country. You ski from the summit down to the valley – that was the height record for ski descents at the time. “That was a key moment, a strong and formative experience,” says Gabl.
After completing his studies, he worked in the regional office of the Austrian Weather Service in Innsbruck. The mountaineer Karl Gabl becomes the civil servant Gabl with the beautiful Austrian title of Hofrat.
At some point, word gets around among expedition mountaineers that there is a meteorologist who is also an alpinist. Someone who can assess what is possible in the mountains. From then on, mountaineers from the Himalayas call him, sometimes while Gabl is hanging on a rope on a wall.
Gabl now looks at precipitation charts, temperatures and weather maps on his laptop. He makes a forecast for the Austrian climber Thomas Huber, who wants to climb Cerro Torre in Patagonia, a granite peak more than 3,000 meters high with vertical walls.
Gabl calculates the expected snowfall, taking temperature and wind into account. He quickly comes to the conclusion: nothing to do, no chance. Huber leaves without having accomplished anything. Gabl doesn’t take any risks.
Gabl says he lost twenty friends and family members in the mountains. The death of his cousin Gertrud Gabl had a significant impact. As a skier she won the overall World Cup in 1969, but died in an avalanche seven years later. Gabl says: “I swore to myself that I would use all my knowledge to increase security.”
This vow drives him. During expeditions, Gabl often gets up in the middle of the night. Sits down in front of the laptop and gives the mountaineers the forecasts. He then tells the summiteers things like: “You can go, but you have to promise me that you will finish the descent in eight hours.” Every mountaineer knows: If he ignores such an agreement, he will never receive a forecast from Gabl again.
Stay calm – even if you are seriously injured in the ditch
Gabl takes on responsibility with his actions. He never had a problem with that, he says. He hardly ever gets upset. He illustrates this with an example: In 2017 he wanted to climb a peak in Bolivia, but on the way there he and his wife were involved in a serious car accident.
It took thirty hours for him to get to the hospital; whether he would survive was uncertain. While waiting for help, he lay bleeding in the ditch. “I still stayed calm. I was aware that if I stressed myself out now, I would bleed out,” says Gabl. He inherited his calmness from his father.
He’s only gotten nervous once in all his years. In 2001 the World Ski Championships will take place in St. Anton, Gabl will provide the FIS with forecasts. The descent has to be postponed as there are huge amounts of snow on the slopes. Peter Schröcksnadel, the former Austrian association president, calls Gabl and says that the descent should under no circumstances take place on a shortened route. The favored Austrians fear a chance winner.
Gabl recommends a postponement of four days instead of just three so that the entire length of the slope can be cleared. He knows that there will be a foehn storm on race day. As the descent begins, he wonders whether he has made a mistake.
All goes well. Victory for Austria, gold for Hannes Trinkl. Gabl says: “I helped Austria win the World Cup.” He laughs mischievously.
One hour after the World Cup descent, the chairlifts had to be closed due to a storm.