The broken collection box, near the summit of the Daubenhorn. Photo / Facebook, viaferrata-leukerbad.ch
The broken collection box, near the summit of the Daubenhorn. Photo / Facebook, viaferrata-leukerbad.ch
A robbery targeting a collection box at the top of one of Switzerland’s most treacherous mountain passes has left climbers dumbfounded.
Thieves brought mountaineering equipment and used steel ladders and cables attached to the rockface to reach their quarry, at 2.4 kilometres above sea level.
Between 400 and 500 Swissfrancs ($760-950) were taken from the Leukerbad climbing club’s collection box, near the summit of the Daubenhorn.
The box, which was set up by a local climbing club to gather donations to keep the rocky pass maintained, was prised open and wrecked underneath a sign reading “your donations guarantee maintenance for us”.
The route is Switzerland’s longest, and has a level K5 “via ferrata” designation reserved for the Alps’ most challenging climbs.
The robbers are believed to be experienced alpinists who knew the area and came prepared with powerful tools to break into the box “with brute force”, said Patrick Grichting, one of the club’s board members.
He said he believed the theft was planned in advance.
View from Daubenhorn summit. Photo / Getty Images
“These are not run-of-the-mill hikers,” he told the DPA news agency. “It’s a massive box that you can’t just pry open with a screwdriver.”
The box is in front of a meadow where climbers stop to rest after a 3000ft climb up a sheer cliff. Around 50 climbers make the ascent each day in peak season.
Grichting thinks it is likely that they made the climb early in the morning or in the evening.
Even after the cables and ladders were installed in 2015, the route remains inaccessible to all but the most experienced climbers, and the theft has shocked the climbing community.
“What kind of people are these?” asked the club on Facebook, calling the heist “a huge insult” that showed “no respect” to the community.
“The climbing club looks after the via ferrata for no salary, we don’t ask for anything, and now someone has stolen the money donated to maintain it,” it said.
“Instead of putting money in the box for maintenance, the money has been stolen,” the volunteers wrote.
“We don’t wish the perpetrators that anything bad will happen, rather that they will be plagued by a bad conscience for the rest of eternity every time they travel to the mountains.”
The club said they believed the thieves continued on their trek to the top of the nearly 10,000ft peak, which surprised club members.
“I couldn’t continue climbing with money in my backpack that was not mine. You have to have morals about you somewhere,” Grichting said.
Donations
A local businessman has donated 500 francs to cover the cash stolen, while well-wishers and climbing enthusiasts took to social media to donate.
Patrick Hannan, a climber, posted on Facebook: “Please do not be disheartened as those who did this are an incredibly small minority and the rest of us really appreciate what you do. I’m happy to donate to help cover the loss.”
A member of a Hungarian mountaineering association commented that they had updated their donation-gathering methods to include QR codes due to the vulnerability of cash.
Switzerland’s crime rates are among the lowest in the world, at 11th place just after Japan, according to the Global Peace Index. But the country has suffered a spate of robberies targeting cash machines in recent years.
Switzerland has the highest concentration of cash machines in Europe, and around a third of payments in the European financial hub are made with hard currency, more than in most other advanced economies.
