Returning to Germany for a fourth time was not a difficult decision for us, considering the many good friends we wanted to visit. We also had some unfinished business with the Zugspitze. During our 2011 trip to Germany we made an attempt to climb to the 9,718 foot summit of Zugspitze. As things sometimes go in the mountains, we were unable to make it all the way to the top, so we decided to turn around and we would have to visit again someday to finish the task of climbing to the summit.
Fourteen years later, the best part of returning was getting to attempt the Zugspitze once again with our good friend Helga Hengge. We first met Helga in 2009 while climbing the Vinson Massif in Antarctica, and over the years we have now climbed together to the highest peaks in eight countries and four continents. Helga has also climbed all of the Seven Summits including Everest, and is the first German woman to do so. She is a highly sought after public speaker and has written several books about climbing. We think the stories we share from our adventures together with Helga could fill their own book - albeit the stories might only be entertaining for a small group of characters and mostly the three of us.
This story of the Zugspitze, as with many tales in the mountains, was influenced by snow and the weather. We had a good plan and route figured out in advance, and less than a week before our scheduled date to climb the Zugspitze on Oct. 11th, an early season snowstorm dropped nearly two feet of snow in the Alps. Luckily for us Helga is a local and knows several guides in the area who were able to share firsthand knowledge of the snow conditions on the routes. Most importantly they said the via ferrata cables on our planned route the Stopselzieher, or 'Corkscrew' were covered by snow and it would be dangerous to attempt it without that protection. Thanks to their good recommendation, we took the Gatterl Route from the Austrian / southern side of the mountain instead, which is longer but gets more sun and therefore most of the snow had already melted off in the days after the storm. We started early from the Ehrwald Albahn, and for the first hour we hiked in chilly and cloudy weather with a brisk morning wind. Luckily we quickly climbed up and out of the clouds into a beautiful clear day with sunshine, blue skies and almost zero wind for the rest of the day. It was fun to hike up through the ski resort while daydreaming of the upcoming ski season back home at Powder Mountain. The fact that the Zugspitze is a ski area and has a cable car practically all the way to its 9,718 foot summit, also gave us something to look forward to in a quick and easy descent back to the valley floor after our work going up the mountain was complete.
It was hard work at times, especially the steep upper section of the mountain which fortunately had exposed via ferrata cables to clip into for safety. All in all it was an enjoyable, picture perfect day for hiking and catching up with Helga along the trail with stunning peaks of the Bavarian Alps as a backdrop. After capturing the essence of the day with a few pics on the summit, it was time for the cable car ride back down. The Zugspitzbahn has the distinction as the cable car with the greatest elevation gain in the world: 6,419 feet! What took us almost 7 hours to climb up, took only a matter of minutes to get back down.
And now that the unfinished business with the Zugspitze was complete, we were off with Helga to the next country high point of our trip...
No comments:
Post a Comment