At 10 a.m. on January 19, 2025, members of the Austrian mountain rescue team found Kerstin Gurtner on the Großglockner peak.
She had been dead for a long time, and the cause of death was hypothermia.
The day before, she set out with her boyfriend Thomas Plamberger with the goal of climbing Grossglockner, Austria's highest peak at 3,798 meters above sea level.
Thomas made it down the mountain safely and alone, leaving Kirsten there for good.
(Related reports)
After this incident happened, the Austrian media made a lot of reports: A veteran who had climbed the Glockner more than 14 times took his girlfriend with no winter mountain experience on the most dangerous route of the year. When she was exhausted, hypothermic, and unable to move, she went down the mountain alone.
The police search and rescue helicopter flew in and circled six times that night, but he didn't send a single signal.
At two o'clock in the morning, he threw her about fifty meters from the top of the mountain and turned around to leave.
It wasn't until 3:30 in the morning that the first real call for help was made.
We just wrote about this story a few months ago, so I won’t go into details here.
In February of this year, when the court was held, many details that had never been made public before emerged, making the matter even more confusing.
Before that, we have to introduce the concept of climbing difficulty rating.
The International Mountaineering Federation divides the difficulty of mountaineering and rock climbing into 12 levels, but levels 7 to 12 can almost be understood as "non-human difficulty", and most routes fall within the range of 1 to 6.
In this accident, Thomas and Kirsten were taking the Stüdlgrat route on the Glockner.
(Thomas at the trial was coded by the Austrian media)
In summer, most of the Studl Ridge route is grade 3, and only a small number of difficult sections can reach grade 4, which is generally considered moderately difficult. But in winter, when snow and ice cover the route and storms rage, the difficulty will soar straight up, and it cannot be understood as just grade 3 to 4.
Thomas is 36 years old. He has climbed to the top of Glockner several times, taking the Studel Ridge route. The important thing is that three of them were in winter – he has winter experience.
Not so Kirsten. In previous reports, many media described Kirsten as a pure novice, but according to the current update, this statement is wrong – Kirsten is not a complete novice. She has climbed the Watzmann East Face (Level 5) and the Dachstein South Face (Level 5+) and has certain qualifications.
But Kirsten had never walked an alpine route of this level of difficulty in winter. This is the first time.
The biggest gap between the couple is not in mountaineering experience, but in winter experience.
(Studel Ridge in winter)
On January 18, 2025, the weather forecast for that day was clear: wind speed of 74 kilometers per hour, temperature of minus 8 degrees, and with the wind chill effect, the body felt close to minus 20 degrees.
They were a full two hours behind schedule, starting from the foot of the mountain at 6:45 in the morning, and had to continue climbing after the sun went down.
The other climbing teams encountered along the way that day all chose to retreat at the same point, but Thomas and Kirsten did not.
At 5:22 p.m., Kirsten picked up her cell phone to call for help, but misremembered the number. The mountain rescue number was 140. She dialed 149 but did not get through.
Then she sent a text message to her mother saying "our trip is over" – probably because she was afraid that her mother would be worried, she lied conveniently.
At around 8 p.m., she slipped on the rock wall and was caught by the rope, but her hip and hand were injured.
From this point on, the two were essentially trapped on the mountain.
We have also mentioned in the previous article that there are actually cameras facing outside the Glockner Peak. In the night, the headlights of the two people are very conspicuous. Other climbers saw two people on the top of the mountain who were not coming down, which was unusual in winter, so they notified the police.
(The lights at night are very conspicuous)
At 10:30 p.m., the police search and rescue helicopter arrived and circled six times near them. The searchlight was turned on, illuminating the surrounding area.
The pilot actually saw movement on the mountain, but Thomas did not send any distress signal. The pilot thought that everyone was fine and flew away.
It should be explained here that this is not "malfeasance" by the pilot, because in the Alps, many hard-core climbers will deliberately choose to climb at night or early in the morning, or sleep on the rock wall.
The helicopter couldn't land on the steep ridge at night and with that kind of wind speed, and it couldn't get close enough to directly shout for confirmation.
Seeing movement but no distress signal meant that they were sure no rescue was needed and flying away was in compliance with operating procedures.
But for the police, this did not mean that the crisis was over. They needed to get in touch with the two people on the mountain to confirm that they really planned to climb at night, so after that, the police kept calling Thomas.
The problem is he never answers.
It wasn't until 12:35 a.m. that Thomas finally answered the phone, two hours after the helicopter flew away.
(Thomas and his lawyer)
But even then, Thomas still said on the phone that everything was normal and they didn't need a helicopter.
After that, no one answered his cell phone, and all the messages he sent were ignored.
Later, the police officer in charge of the call clearly testified in court: "That phone call was definitely not a call for help."
At two o'clock in the morning, Thomas left Kirsten about 50 meters away from the top of the mountain, climbed over the top alone, and descended to the other side.
He didn't unpack her emergency camping bag – that bag had been in her backpack, and he didn't even help her take off the backpack that weighed several kilograms when he left. Didn't do anything, just left.
Thomas later said that before leaving, Kirsten took the initiative to shout to him "Let's go, let's go", and that's when he made up his mind to abandon her. He said this sentence saved his life.
But did Kirsten really say this? No one can know.
In short, it was only at 3:30 in the morning that Thomas walked down the mountain and made the first real call for help.
But by then it was too late.
On February 19, 2026, the trial began in Innsbruck. More than 50 reporters came and surrounded the court.
(A large crowd of reporters outside the court)
The trial lasted a full 13.5 hours. What everyone didn't expect the most was not the evidence presented by the prosecutor, but a name that suddenly appeared on the witness stand: Andrea B.
This person is Thomas' ex-girlfriend.
She told the court that Thomas took her to climb Grossglockner in the summer of 2023.
On the way down, the two got into an argument because she was too slow and wanted to take a different route. Then, without saying a word, Thomas suddenly turned around and walked away.
Andrea said that she was "in a bad mood" because it took too long and she slowed down the progress;
Faced with her complaints and slow speed, Thomas obviously lost his patience completely: "We were descending at night. I wanted to go another way. I was exhausted."
"He just disappeared. In the middle of the night, in the mountains, my headlamp ran out of power and it was pitch black. I cried and shouted, but no one responded. He just left me alone."
The only good thing was that it was summer, much warmer than winter, and Andrea finally survived and made it down the mountain by herself.
(From an Austrian media report, the original text is in German, translated here)
But she never spoke about it to the outside world, and remained silent for two years until the prosecutor called her to the witness stand.
For the prosecutor, Andrea's testimony changed the nature of the entire case from an "accident" to a "replicable operation" – who knows if he got the inspiration to kill from this mountain climbing?
The mountaineering magazine "Climbing" even called Andrea's testimony "the last straw that broke the defendant's back."
The story doesn’t end here, because Kirsten’s mother Gertraud Gurtner appeared in court. The most unexpected thing is that she is not here to accuse Thomas, but to speak for him.
She said media coverage of the incident was a "witch hunt." Kirsten is an adult and should be responsible for her own choices.
What she meant was that the media had painted Kirsten as a "poor little fool who was dragged up a mountain," and she didn't want that to be the last impression her daughter left on the world. She eventually submitted a written statement: "Our daughter took responsibility for herself and we cannot blame her boyfriend."
In order to make the penalty as fair as possible, Austria specially sent Norbert Hofer to serve as the judge. He is a mountain rescue volunteer with considerable mountaineering experience.
(Thomas, Judge Hofer)
This detail was singled out in many reports. Before the verdict was read, he said this to Thomas:
"I don't think you are a killer, nor do I think you are a cold-blooded person. But if you had made different choices, I have every reason to believe that your partner would have survived."
Simply put, this penalty was a bit unexpected.
Hofer went easy on Thomas, dismissing some of the prosecutor's accusations, such as starting out too late, and arguing that the early-morning phone call "was subjectively a call for help."
He also acknowledged Kirsten's mother's statement and believed that she had a "common negligence". She was an adult and she chose to continue climbing up and could not blame others.
In the end, he was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to 5 months in prison, suspended, and a fine of 9,600 euros. That's all.
However, both parties still retain the right to appeal, and this penalty may not be the final outcome.
(Kirsten)
Unfortunately, due to Kirsten’s death, the truth is no longer known…
Is this really a "manslaughter"? Or a perfect crime?
