Hohe Schlechtgaisl

From the parking lot at Ra Stua Alm, proceed about 1 km along a wide forest road northwards towards Sennes. 30 meters past a bridge, make a short right off-trail and immediately reach an old wide mule track likely used for logging transport. Follow this trail marked with signs up to its end on a grassy plateau. From here, follow the sparse cairns straight through to a often dry small creek bed. Go up this creek bed a short distance until cairns point left to a steep path leading up to the Muntjela valley to the now removed Pia Helbig-Dall’Oglio bivouac at about 2300 m. Shortly before it, a Madonna statue on a rock wall commemorates the builders of the bivouac.

This is where the trail ends. From the green foothills of Muntjela valley, a magnificent Dolomite panorama opens up with the south face of the Kleine Gaisl to the left and behind you the Tofane peaks as well as the high plateau of Sennes-Prags. At the valley end, you can clearly see the gully with a notch that separates the Hohe Schlechtgaisl (left) from the Hohe Gaisl (right). Several partly hard-to-see cairns indicate the way directly along the valley floor. Follow this until you reach the foot of the gully. Crossing the scree field on the right is much more difficult and in autumn, due to late sun exposure, it is frozen hard there!

The gully is ideal with snow; without snow, it can be partially bypassed on the right. It is up to 40 degrees steep. 25 vertical meters before the notch, leave the gully and traverse left across a narrow ledge (I), following cairns, to a exposed saddle. From here, there are two options: either ascend zigzag to the left over scree-covered terrain (I) to the summit (northwest exposure, so possibly snow), or directly ascend the west ridge (II+) to the summit. All other descriptions found online are more difficult. 

The west ridge offers relatively good rock for Gaisl standards. There is also a normal piton with a ring for abseiling shortly below the summit. At the summit, there is a cairn hiding a plastic bottle with a soaked older summit logbook and a tin can with a newer summit booklet for the few summit visitors. The panorama from the summit is magnificent. You can see the entire Dolomites. Also impressive are the red “weeping” walls of the neighboring Hohe Gaisl.

The descent is the same as the ascent, whereby the gully is much more pleasant going down. An ice axe offers greater safety.