Watzmann

Time for another mountain……

Of the few German mountains of considerable magnitude, there can be no doubt that the “Watzmann” group is the most spectacular.

With 2713 m at it’s highest peak, it is not the tallest mountain of the country, but its family group line up including a “mother”, “children” and – of course – a much higher “father”, is recognised like the Matterhorn in Switzerland or the Half Dome in Yosemite.

With my summer commitment in Zug behind me, and with a rare window of excellent weather for the Northern Alps forecasted, I was lucky to secure one of the few remaining dormitory places at the Watzmann Haus/cabin. Finally I could pay this Alpine icon a long overdue visit.

The Watzmann is located in the area of Berchtesgarden, which is a small outcrop at the Southern border of Germany, nearly entirely surounded by Austria.

Parking my car near the “Königsee”, which is alongside Neuschwanstein one of Bavaria’s most visited tourist attraction, I made my way up the mountain on a well sign-posted trail.

The first 1/2 hour I walked alongside the world- famous, but – following a recent land side – severly damaged Olympic bobsleigh track. Leaving a scene of twisted metal and broken concrete behind me, the trail then disappeared into thick alpine forest and stayed like this for nearly 800 altitude meters, before emerging on to a small plateau.

This was the Kührointalm, a summer pasture for a herd of local cattle and a great opportunity to enjoy a well earned “Apfelstrudel”.

After passing a small chapel of remembrance for whoever had died of an accident in this part of the Alps ( a surprisingly large number of hikers and climbers I thought….), a rock cornice with the cabin placed right on its tip became visible another 700 m above me.

The path became now less well maintained with a lot of large tree roots crossing the way and some sections so steep that they had to be secured with thick steel ropes.

After just over an hour the mountain cabin was infront of me and with that also a warm meal, some cold beer, but – because of a permanent shortage of water so high up on the mountain – not even a cold shower.

Signs suggesting to “Use water as if there wasn’t any….” were displayed everywhere.….

Early dinner with just internal rehydration was followed by an early night (following a stunning sunset)

and , helped by just too much company in (not only) my bedroom, a very early start the next morning.

After another 1 and 1/2 hours with some scrambling on thankfully very dry rocks, one of the peaks, the “Hocheck” was reached and with that a brilliant view over a large section of the Northern Alps.

Here the amateurs (including the author….) were separated from the serious mountaineers, who now retrieved helmets, gloves and climbing gear from their well organised backpacks, to continue the track along the whole – often very exposed – rim of the mountain, covering all the other peaks.

The rest of us enjoyed a short break, before starting an – at times equally exposed – descend of over 2000 altitude meters back to the lake, where a short but spectacular boat trip formed the final part of this Alpine adventure.