Klaus Hoi

Klaus Hoi (born April 12, 1942 in Liezen , Styria ) is an Austrian mountaineer.

biography

Hoi attended the high school for agriculture and forestry in Raumberg , which he graduated as a forest engineer. By 1965 he completed his training as a state-certified mountain and ski guide and from 1978 to 1996 he was the training manager of the Association of Austrian Mountain and Ski Guides. In this function he developed new crevasse rescue, retreat and securing methods together with mountaineering colleagues. He was also the owner of the Styrian Mountaineering Center, which he founded.

He was involved in the creation of numerous specialist books for hikers and mountaineers, and he was also involved in the development of climbing equipment. Among other things, he was a co-developer of one of the first seat belts with leg loops and waist belt. In 1977 he rescued two climbers from the wintry north face of the Lalidererspitze with a method he had invented and 800 m steel rope . His rope partnership with Hugo Stelzig is one of the longest in the world. In 2011 the TV broadcaster ServusTV produced the episode “The longest rope team in the world - Klaus Hoi and Hugo Stelzig” for the documentary series Urgewalten .

Rockclimbing

His first climbing tour took him in March 1958 over the west ridge to the Großer Buchstein . In May 1959 he met Hugo Stelzig, who was two years older than him, and a trained electrician from Liezen. Together they made around 300 first ascents, most of them in Gesäuse and Dachstein . They undertook the most demanding rock climbing tours on the Kalbling , the Rosskuppe, in the north face of the Dachl and in the Kaiser Mountains .

In 1962 they managed the 23rd ascent of the north face of the Eiger , when Hoi was only 19 years old. Other well-known Alpine walls followed, including the Grand Capucin east face , Triolet north face, Matterhorn north face, Cima Scotoni south west face, Große Zinne north face, Totenkirchl west pillar and Torstein south face. In 1971, he and Robert Kittl, Hansjörg Farbmacher and Hans Mariacher undertook the first longitudinal crossing of the Alps on skis. The four started in Vienna on March 21st and reached Nice on April 29th . They covered about 2000 km and about 85000 meters in ascent.

His most famous first ascents include the Buhlweg (1963), the mountain plan (1963) and the north-west wall guide (1971) on the Dachl in Gesäuse. With his route Complicated on the north-west side of the Dachl in 1977, difficulty level VII was established in the Gesäuse. In 1967 he and Peter Habeler opened the mountain guide crack on the northwest face of the meat bank . Other routes he started for the first time are the Superlux on the southwest side of the Festkogel in the Ennstal Alps in 1981, the Indirect on the Hohen Dachstein in 1978 and the Magic Line on the Schneebergwand in the Dachstein Mountains in 1981.

In July 1988 he discovered the "Voodoo Canyon" on the south face of the Dachstein while climbing the Top Secret route for the first time , a cave that until 2013 had a measured total length of 3938 m and a depth of 723 m. In 2011, Klaus Hoi, then 69 years old, and Hugo Stelzig at the age of 72 made the first winter ascent of the north face of Grimming in eight and a half hours.

Web links

• Portrait at Alpenwiki
• Climbing legend Klaus Hoi, mountain doctors