In the Oberbertal there is a dog that likes to accompany ski tourers and occasionally even comes all the way up to the hut – not necessarily anything reprehensible, just as background to the story.
After many avalanches had come down in the area on Saturday, among others onto the approach route to the hut, this morning I routinely searched all the avalanches that had swept over the route with my transceiver – with negative results.
In the early morning I heard a dog barking from the Ober Iss Alm. I immediately contacted the owners of the hiking-loving dog and told them that their dog was in the area of the winter path. We agreed that the owner would fetch the dog in the evening if the avalanche situation allowed it.
In the afternoon two ski tourers set off from the hut and heard the barking. Since an avalanche had come down at that spot the day before, they concluded that the dog's owner must have been buried. They were reinforced in this by briefly picking up a signal on an avalanche transceiver, which, however, was due to operating error.
The two reported their observations to the police in Neustift, who in turn informed the Landeswarnzentrale, and a major operation with 3 helicopters was already under way. A single call to the hut would have cleared everything up. Unfortunately, since the Landesleitstelle has existed, it is no longer customary to fall back on the cooperation that worked well for decades. In the days of the Interior Ministry's air operations unit, there was no operation in our area without us having coordinated. The cost of the 3 helicopters is a truly beastly story.
Briefly regarding the report on Tirol Heute: the dog was far, far away from any avalanche debris cone – yes, such stories happen in days like the past ones.