Munich – Hiking Wonders

Alpspitze 2 628 m – my first hike on my own

October 13, 2017October 13, 2017madeziiusLeave a comment

IMG_20171002_091857

Alpspitze has been on my list a long time because it looks pointy and I just love pointy mountains. Every time I took the train pass Garmisch Partenkirchen I got reminded of that I still had not been on top of top of it. BUT NOT ANYMORE! :D:D Now I can point to it and say have have been on top of it 😀 (as I proudly did when we took the train to Ehrwald last weekend 😀 )

Actually i have tried to climb or planned to climb Alpspitze several times. First I planned to do it in August this year, but then I got sick. Then we tried a month ago, but first we could not find the bus (Bus nr2) that you have to take to get to the Alpspitze cable car and when we finally found the right stop we had to wait 45 minutes until the next bus. That was ok, we had time and the after a coffee and some breakfast we were ready to take the next bus, but when Elias started to look for our train ticket which is also valid on busses, he could not find it anywhere. After some desperate searching we just had to admit that we forgot it on the train. Well ok we thought, we will need new ticket anyways to get home so we decided to buy a new ticket on the bus. Turned out that this bus, which was a local bus and not a regional bus, did not sell Bayern tickets and we had to buy one from the automate in the train station, but as the bus driver did not want to wait for us this meant that we had to take the next bus ad again wait 45 minutes. As we already had very limited time for this hike and needed to be back in Munich for a birthday party that same evening we decided to drop it and take the train back home. It just was not meant to happen, I told Elias and so Alpspitze reminded on my list.

So two weeks ago I decided to try again. It was a very spontaneous decision. I decided to go for it around half past eight in the evening and therefore had to pack in a hurry, not like me at all 😀

Elias did not want to join, not because he don’t like Alpspitze, but because he did not want to use a vacation day. So I decided to be adventurous and go by myself! It had rained so much lately that I could not let this change go pass me.

I wanted to do the Via Ferrata from Osterfelderkopf 2057m. The Via Ferrata was supposed to be easy, but as I was going alone I decided to take the Via Ferrata set with me.

Screenshot from 2017-10-13 21:44:26

Normally I would hike the whole way from the valley, but that is over 2000m climb and with days getting shorter doing this would have most likely meant hiking in the dark on way down. In addition, weather forecast promised rain for after four o’clock. Therefore, not feeling bad about it (ok,maybe just a little), I took the super expensive cable car up and down (27 euros!!) Or at least I paid for it. In fact I managed to take the wrong cable car up! 😦 So if you now read this, learn from my mistakes! The problem was that the bus stops in front of the Kreuzeck cable car station which only takes you up to 1651m. This was the only station I could see when I got of the bus and had bought the ticket. The Alpspitzbahn is further pass the ticket station and I did not see it. I therefore took the wrong one 😦

But it was all ok in then end, it just meant that I had to hike up one and a half hour to Osterfelderkopf, where I could finally start the Via Ferrata to Alpspitz. There was just one problem, I had trouble figuring out where exactly the Via Ferrata starts. There are a lot of signboards, but all of them are for touristy easy walks in the area. To find the via Ferrata I walked around the rocks on the path above the road and managed to spot the right sign. I followed the trail further and found the start of the Via Ferrata together with the warnings “for experienced hikers only”. The Via Ferrata starts before the small tunnel, so if you meet the tunnel you have walked too far. From the spot of the warning signs you hike a little further until you meet the sign where it explains how to use the Via Ferrata set. I geared up here and took a nervous selfie before I started the climb.

IMG_20171002_104555

IMG_20171002_105359

I have heard that it gets very busy on Alpspitze during weekends and summer, but I was all alone most of the time. I passed on couple on my way up and I saw that there was one other group of people climbing up after me.

The Via Ferrata is 500 height meters and quite long, but I felt it was easy, and I did not use my Via Ferrata set once. The route was secured meter by meter, also in places where you really did not need any securing. It was quite exposed at times, so it’s not for people with fear of heights. I used one and a half hours up, but I did not take any breaks so with more traffic and more breaks it would take 2 hours for sure.

IMG_20171002_113854 — This was not uncommon on this path/ via ferrata

IMG_20171002_115021 — The peak, so close yet so far.

At times I stopped up for a moment to join the view and to feel proud of myself. Not only did I go hiking alone, which I find is brave enough since I have terrible sense of direction, but I also decided to do a hard hike which I had not done before, with a long Via Ferrata! Some people probably think that it is dangerous to hike alone, and I guess it can be, but it is also dangerous to cross the street or drive a car and we still do it? For me it is nice to know that I can go by myself and do not need to be dependent of others. Still, I will always enjoy hiking with others more than alone because I like the social aspect of it and I like to share the moments and experiences.

IMG_20171002_120518

On the peak I took a one hour break, and enjoyed the view and my accomplishment. The weather was clear and it was easy to see Zugspitze and Jubiläumsgrat. Jubiläumsgrat is actually on my list. I just need to level up fist or find somebody who has a little more mountaineering experience and will let me tag along 😉

Zugspitze had a construction crane on top of it, the ultimate sign of tourist taking over that peak. This makes me soo sad and this is also why I haven’t hiked Zugspitze yet. I go to mountains to be in nature not to post postcards and stand in a crowd.

IMG_20171002_121722

IMG_20171002_122205

After some time I tried to figure out what path to take down. My original plan was to take Grieskar down, but everybody else were choosing another path called Ostflanke. I did not know how hard Grieskar would be, but I knew that it would be longer. In the end I decided to join another group of hikers who took the popular path down. I just did not want to push my luck and miss the last cable car down. The group of four who I hiked down with german and older than me, but it is easy to find the tone with people who have the same passion as you. We talked about mountains and hiking most of the way down. We had quite fast phase and used one and half hour down. This path was not a klettersteig and was indeed easy, but it was at times hard to spot it. But there is quite a lot of traffic on it so it is always possible to follow others.

IMG_20171002_132254

Back at the cable car station I had just enough time to book a bus ticket back to Munich before the next cable car went down. As it was quite early I could have had hiked down, but since I already had the ticket I did not want to waste it. I could not complain about the views from the cable care either:

IMG_20171002_145035

From the valley I took again bus nr 2 to Garmisch and had 1 hour to kill before the flixbus arrived. The moment the bus arrived it started to rain and I was quite glad that I did not decide to hike down after all.

When I hiked alone I felt the need to share my joy with somebody when I managed to make it to the top, but there was nobody there. I guess I will get used to this after more alone hiking. The good thing is that I will always have this blog to share some of the moments of my adventures.

IMG_20171002_122836

I just finished pacing for my next hike. The weather is supposed to be amazing this weekend, but unfortunately I can only do an easy hike tomorrow. Will blog about it soon 😉

Cheers,

Made.

Hiking & Biking – Birkkarspitze 2749 m, Is it doable in one day?

August 16, 2017August 16, 2017madeziiusLeave a comment

Birkkarspitze was actually not my plan for this weekend, but as I could not do the hike I had planned in Innsbruck, this was a nice plan B. This is not very easily accessible hike, specially when you want to do it with one day.

Birkkarspitze is the highest peak in Karwendel mountains, I actually thought that Westliche karwendelspitze was the highest one and that I was on top of karwendel when I did Mittenwalder klettersteig. Turns out that it is actually Birkkarspitze 😀

20170813_153503

If you want to hike Birkkarspitze in one day the options are to bike into the Karwendeltal or Hinterautal. The advantage of choosing Karwendeltal is that you will have a hut on the way back and you can do a nice loop, including the ridge over Ödkarspitze. From Hinterautal you can only do Birkkarspitze and you will need to go up and down the exact same path. We did the Karwendeltal route, If I decide to only hike Birkkarspitze, I will do it via Hinterautal.

So our route was the following (Outdooractive link):

birkarspitze

This was the first hike where I bike to the starting point of the hike. I just bought a new (used) bike on Thursday and I was both excited and nervous about using it on this hike. I had read on the all knowing internet that the road to Karwendelhaus should be also bikeable with normal bike, but I also knew that it was 500hm uphill, over 13 km. So I uncertain if my city bike would be suitable for that 😀 But when in doubt I try to remember the advice a Norwegian expeditionist, Børge Ousland: “Don’t be so afraid of failing”. So with this advice in my head we packed the bags on Saturday and went to bed at nine to wake up 5:30 the day after. The first train from Munich to Scharnitz leaves at 6:30 so we biked to Hbf. in the dark!! I can’t believe that it was dark, this actually means that winter is coming! Ok I am exaggerating a bit, but still, days are getting shorter fast.

In Scharnitz we took out our outdooractive map and tried to follow it, but still go lost. Luckily there was a nice lady who told us where the bike road to Karwendelhaus starts.

Still, the beginning of the trail was a little bit tricky. We could just follow the road and signs to Karwendeltal, but chose to take a short, but steep as hell, shortcut through the forest. In retrospective it was worth it, because I am quite sure it saved 30 minutes, or more by doing this. But if you do not feel like starting the hike by pushing your bike up a narrow ,steep forest path, just follow the road and signs to Karwendeltal (the outdooractive map follows the forest path 🙂 )

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

After sweat 20 minutes in the forest, the path ran into the main gravel road and we were able to start biking. It was still heavy and all the mountain bikers, with their crazy ass mountain bikes, biked pass us. One of them was even asking me if we really wanted to do Birkkarspitze, then laughing and biking pass us. Honesty, not everybody has 2000 euros to invest into a mountainbike, you do not need to be a ***hole about it!

IMG_20170813_091909

From Scharnitz It took us 2 hours to bike to Angeralm, but since we forgot to look at the map we biked a bit too far and had to bike back. That cost us probably 15 minutes or so 😦

At Angeralm we locked our bikes under a nice three and started the hike at 11:45. There were no signs on the whole hike so a GPS map from outdooractive was really very useful. The hike up was very steep to begin with, but flattened out after a while when we reached the ridge. The path itself was hardly visible, and at times it felt like we were not following a path at all, just walking in the wildness. There were no other hikes on the path we took, so I guess most people hike just Birkarspitze from the hut.

20170813_193223 — Do not bike into the forest here, the path starts on the right side of the big tree

20170813_161527 (1)

We did not mind having the path to ourselves, the views were amazing and looking up towards the ridge reminded us of the Dolomites, just without all the tourists. Before we got to the real ridge we had to cross a long gravel valley, but it was not steep and was easy to cross. From here the last accent to the real ridge started. There were sections on the ridge that were surprisingly exposed. Luckily there were fixed iron ropes on these sections, which was good because even I felt unconformable at one spot :O :O

IMG_20170813_153010 (1).jpg — Climbing down from Ödkarspitze

Another thing that surprised us was that the ridge was not really flat. Looking at the map I thought it would be more or les flat, but in fact we had to go quite a lot up and down between the Weslishe Öderskarspitze (2712m) , Östliche Ödkarspitze (2738 m) and Birkkarspitze(2749), even though their height difference is only couple of meters.

20170813_145954

20170813_145217

IMG_20170813_130704

IMG_20170813_132908

When we got to the part where you can choose to go up to Birkkarspitze or down to the hut it was 15:30 and so after some discussion we decided to drop the peak. We were not sure how much time it would take and we wanted to have some time at the hut. Also, the path down to the hut looked really hard and we decided therefore to take a small break at the Biwak hut instead, have our Gipfel beer there and then head down. The Biwak hut was nice but very small, I think some of the people coming up planned to stay there overnight. So this would also be an option, but remember, there is no water there, so you need to bring enough water in you want to do this.

In retrospective we could definitely have made the peak as well, but we would then have been stressed about the time on the way down and would not have enjoined it as much. Therefore I am also not too bitter about missing the peak. In the end I don’t do this to gather the most peaks, I do this because I love being in the mountains. From the Biwak we used 1h 30 minutes down, not rushing it. We were at the hut 17:30, but it turned out they did not serve dinner before 6:00. Which meant they only had soup and beer. Not exactly what we were hoping for 😦

Karwendelhaus, Birkkarspitze is in the fog behind it.

After some beer and Apfelstrudel we started heading down to our bikes, which took us about another hour walking. From Angeralm we just rolled back to Scharnitz in ca. 1 hour. This was pure enjoyment! And at the same time I understood why it was so heavy to bike to Angeralm, it was in fact all uphill! 😀 😀 ..

We were down at Angeralm at 19.00 and at Scharnitz train station at 20:15. The loop to the hut took us 6.h 30 min. If you want to do the peak you need to add at least 40 minutes, I would say.

We had some time to kill before as the last train back to Munich leaves 21:30. We used the time on stretching and got some beverages and crisps from the local petrol station.

All in all this was a real challenging hike, including the hm from Scharnitz, we did over 2000 hm in one day! The feeling of accomplishment was even stronger as we did it with normal bikes, which is way more adventurous and challenging than cruising to the hut on a mountainbike. Do I recommend this hike for “normal” people ? Well, you differently need to like a challenge if you decide to do it with normal city bike, but let there be no doubt, it is doable!

IMG_20170813_151802

This weekend I can’t go hiking because of work 😦 , but the boulder world cup 2017 is held in Munich this weekend, so I plan to stream it and enjoy my sofa. Furthermore, in two weeks I plan to do a real badass hike in Austria, which I need to charge my batteries for, so a weekend at home will be nice.

Trust or not to Trust the Weather Forecast – Hiking Thaneller 2 341 m

August 7, 2017August 7, 2017madeziius1 Comment

IMG_20170805_124109

At times it feels like looking at the weather forecast has become my new hobby 😀 While other people spend their time checking for Facebook updates, I spend my time on checking the weather forecast for different parts of the Alps! 😀 (Btw, I still trust the Norwegian weather app yr.no the most)

This weekend I had not been been hiking for the two past weekends and was quite desperate, but again the weather forecast predicted thunderstorms and rain in the mountains for the weekend to come. The question was, should I trust the forecast or not?? In the end I decided not to do so, and went hiking anyways! I was off course ready for rain and we had decided that if the weather turns stormy we will turn around.

So we got up at 5:30, took the 6:35 train from Hbf and headed to Heiterwang to conquer Thaneller (2341m). First of all I must say I was totally surprised that I could use the Bayern ticket the whole way, as Heiterwang is in Austria. So this was a pleasant surprise. After 2 hours and 15 Minutes we were there. The weather was perfect, 23 degrees and sunny. Still, I was a little worried because the rain was supposed to start after 12:00, hence we had quite fast pace for the first two hours.

The path from Heiterwang is not hard to find and it is a nice path through the forest and across several green meadows. If the sky is clear you can spot the peak already form the train station (It is the highest one).

IMG_20170805_104034 — This is the peak, but you have to go around to the right, before you start the accent

After two hours, a rocky gravel path starts and heads to the right. We were not aware of this, but in fact you have to go to the right side of Thaneller to get to the peak. This was a little disappointing for us, as it felt that we were almost there as the peak was so near, but instead of heading right up the wall we needed to follow the path approx 30 minutes direction Reutte and decent approximately 150 hm down into a valley, where the real accent started. From the valley we followed a zigzag gravel path direction a rocky wall. When we meet the wall, the most fun part of the hike started. There is some scrambling and some iron ropes, but no equipment is needed. From this point we thought the peak was quite close, but in fact It took us another 1h 30 minutes to reach the peak.

IMG_20170805_120158 — THE WALL , the path follows the left side

IMG_20170805_124026

IMG_20170805_125200

IMG_20170805_124034

The view from the peak was really worth the struggle. Plansee changed its colors from blue to green as the sun hit it and the white clouds made the view to the lakes mysterious and idyllic at the same time:

IMG_20170805_142845

IMG_20170805_143142

IMG_20170805_143513 — One happy mountaingirl

As always we took our time on the peak and stayed approximately for an hour enjoying the sun, the view and the calmness of Thalneller. From the peak, we could actually see all the way to Hohenschwangau. We could also easily spot Säuling, so it was cool to spot it and know that we have been on top of it :D:D You can read about our hike to Säuling here.

We went down the same scrambling path as we came up, but choose a different path down in the valley to Heiterwang because I find it boring to go up and down the same path and that way we did not have to climb 150 m up again 🙂 It was a really nice path that followed the river for some time so we could fill up our water bottles and then turned into a forest road which was very enjoyable to walk down to Heiterwang. I would not choose this path up to Thanleller, because upwards it would be too boring to walk the forest road, but downhill after a heavy hike, it was perfect!

IMG_20170805_151035 — The fog got to us on the way down, but we did not really mind after the view we had from the peak.

IMG_20170805_155046

I have made a GPS track of the whole trail available on Outdooractive.

We got to Heiterwang at 17:50 and had some time to kill before the next train at 18:38. So we saw everything there was to see of Heiterwang, which is not much. We could not even find a place where you could buy a beer 😦 In other words, there is no point to spend time in Heiterwang, there is just nothing to see! But we used the waiting time to do some stretching and yoga exercises, so the passed fast.

In conclusion, don’t trust the weather app 100%. At least I am glad I did not this weekend. I even know people who were braver than me and went for Alpspitze – a peak that I have planned to do for a month now! Perhaps later this month I can finally stand on top of it!

Until the next hike. Now I’m off for some boulderfun 🙂

Mittenwalder Höhenweg with T-Rex costume!

July 23, 2017July 23, 2017madeziius1 Comment

20170716_163158

Last weekend I joined a quite bad-ass hike; Mittenwalder Höhenweg. Mittenwalder Höhenweg is a via Ferrata over a ridge in Karwendel. There is an option to take a cable car up, but then it would not be a badass would it? So we hiked 1900 hm up from Mittenwald! That is the most height meters I have done during one day, and I must say it was not bad, not bad at all. I did not feel too tired, but I guess it helped that we decided to take the cable car down 😀

Mittenwalder Höhenweg is not an easy hike, unless you take the cable car up that is. There are several options for hiking up. but they all require you to climb 1900 + hm. One option is to follow the trail under the cable car, but this is very steep gravel path. Not much fun in other words. Then there is an option to hike from Scharnitz and over Brunnensteinspitze, this option is doable. We met actually couple of friends in the middle of the hike who came up that way. It is a really nice hike up to Brunnensteinspitze, but it is steep and so when we met them they were already a little tired. You also climb the most height meters following this trail. The third option is to hike from Mittenwald over Brunnsteinhütte. This was the option we chose, and I am happy we did so. This way you have a nice, not too steep, climb in the beginning, and you can have a rest in the hut, some food (btw, they actually had proper coffee, not some instant coffee) and then continue up where the two paths from the hut and from Brunnensteinspitze meet.

Here we had our second break and decided to have fun with a T-rex costume that my friend Haitham had with him:D When he put it on he instantly became a celebrity. It was so much fun! At one point a guy asked us: “What’s wrong with you people? Why would you ever bring a T-rex costume to a hike?” I laughed and answered him: “Because life is only as fun as you are.” He then laughed and wondered where we came from and if we were Erasmus students 😀 I had to disappoint him and reveal that we are all adults who live and work in Munich. Anyways, we got lots of laughs and comments and many cool pictures 😀

PS. We did not do the kletttersteig with the costume of course, we are not crazy either 😉 Haitham , just took it on couple of times for some awesome pictures.

The klettersteig is level A/B so I thought that a klettersteig set is unnecessary, turned out I was the only one in our group who had decided not to bring the equipment. Therefore got a little nervous when I saw all the people coming down fully equipped, but luckily I am pretty good with highs and did not feel a need for a klettersteig set during the hike. BUT don’t get me wrong, Mittelwalder Höhenweg is a proper klettersteig, and there is a reason why most people use the klettersteig set. I just know that on B klettersteigs I normally would not clip in anyways and therefore there is no point of having the set with me. If you are not 120 % conformable with heights, bring your set! It’s better to be safe than sorry.

The ridge is fantastic. You go from peak to peak. I am actually not sure how many peaks we crossed in the end. Since it is a via ferrata, we needed to wait for people at times and did some queuing, but I did not mind that, not at all. It only gave me more time to enjoy the view and take pictures.

IMG_20170716_155724

IMG_20170716_142143

IMG_20170716_143951

IMG_20170716_140534

The klettersteig was really awesome too. At some parts there were planks you had to walk over, and there was also a very long ladder which we had to climb down. So much fun!!!

IMG_20170716_151705

IMG_20170716_143215

20170716_162633

20170716_163153

20170716_161941

20170716_152047

20170716_161813

20170716_155033

20170716_162631

20170716_161945

I think the ridge took us 3 hours, but we were not fast and had breaks to play around with the T-rex costume 😀 During the klettersteig we decided to take the cable car down to save our knees. This meant that we had to be at Karwendelbahn before 6. We were there at 5 and had just enough time to run up to the Westliche Karwendelspitze (2385 m) This was our victory peak! We made it, across the whole ridge and had climbed 1900hm! After a short break and mandatory gipfel beer, we headed down to the cable car. I already then could feel that taking the cable car was the right thing to do. When I finally sat in the cable car and looked at the gravel path under us, I was even happier that we took the cable car, it would just not have been worth the struggle to hike down.

20170716_164826 — Karwendelbahn in front of the Östliche Karwendelspitze

I saw some nice mountains during this hike that I will add to my to-do list: Östliche Karwendelspitze and Arnplattenspitze.

I really loved this hike, perhaps this could be your next adventure? Mittenwald is really easy to get to from Munich by train. My friend Anna has made a GPS track of the hike available here (This track still shows that we hike down, but in fact we took the cable car)

Other hikes you can do from Mittenwald are Große Arnspitze and Obere Wettersteinspitze. Obere Wettersteinspitze is one of my favorite hikes, so I really recommend it!

I hoped to go hiking today again, but that did not work out, the weather is just too unpredictable at the moment 😦 So this weekend is going to be a quiet one, but I got the new issue of Bergsteiger yesterday and am looking forward to just relax and read about some awesome mountaineers out there 🙂

Interview with Munich Mountain Girls

July 2, 2017September 2, 2017madeziiusLeave a comment

Munich Mountain girls is a community started in 2016 by a mountain girl from Munich. Here you can learn to know sporty mountain girls in Munich. You can sit back and get inspired by reading about inside hiking tips, must have hiking gear and girls’ favorite places to hang out in Munich. I was contacted by Christine (the owner of the page) early June for a short interview and was glad to participate.

Now I can officially myself a Munich Mountain Girl. It’s only a label but its a cool one 😉 I also look forward to get to know all the other girls part of the community and to get inspired and to learn from them.

In the interview you can learn about my first experience in the mountains, about my favorite hike until now in Germany, and what I always have in my back bag when I go hiking :).

You can check out Munich Mountain Girls and the interview with me here.

PS. It’s in German, but I am sure Google will help you to translate it 😉

Enjoy.

Last but not least, I want to share a little glimpse of my hiking trip in Norway. I just got back today but I already miss the mountains there. I will write about the hikes in Norway soon so stay tuned 🙂