The climber who left his girlfriend to freeze to death at the top of Austria’s highest peak claims he begged for a helicopter to rescue them but was told sending one was impossible — hours before the couple agreed he should trek for help on his own.

Thomas Plamberger, 36, laid bare his version of events in a statement to investigators when they first started probing his involvement in his 33-year-old girlfriend Kerstin Gartner’s Jan. 18 death atop Grossglockner mountain.

In his statement, which came to light after he was charged last week, Plamberger insisted the entire “situation was hopeless” — as he questioned why it took so long for a rescue to be initiated in the first place.

Prosecutors have accused the experienced mountaineer of abandoning his ill-equipped girlfriend roughl

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