Der Watzman watched over me this morning from outside the window. It was another beautifully sunny alpine morning. It was the kind of waking scene that if it were portrayed in a movie, suddenly, but as it were an everyday natural occurrence, strings would start to play and long alpine horns would be heard in the distance.
(Note the forming clouds over the peak.)
I was excited for the day to take many amazing pictures to share and give myself a good workout in the mountains. The first objective was quickly spoiled by a cloud front that moved into position just in the half hour it took me to walk to town.
Waiting at the bus station, the sky started graying.
The new bus pads are behind the original Bahnhof conscripted by Adolf Hitler. The size and grandeur of the building does not match the alpine town setting. He wanted his arrival to be of grand style and not to just arrive at a cement platform in the mountains but an actual station. The station's functionality has likely saved it from the post Reich wrecking ball.
The Konigsee bus dropped me off at the Jenner Seilbahn or tram bearing ski lifts.
The lift takes passengers up near the top of Mt. Jenner or 1,800 meters. It is funny to think that just a few years ago these mountains seemed very high. Now they are just as beautiful as ever but toddlers compared with the Himalayas or even Mt. Kilimanjaro. For comparison, when we climbed the almost 6,000 meter Mt. Kilimanjaro, the starting gate for the climb was 1,800 meters above sea level and the first night of camping was higher than any mountain in the Berchtesgaden National Park.
So, with the “picture taking” plan thoroughly debunked for the day by the ever thickening cloud deck, kicking my own butt in the mountains was still a good option. The cloud cover made for comfortable hiking, especially since I left my “summit ball cap” on the bus and had no screen from the sun.
(Yes, Kristen this is the same peak we climbed a couple of years ago.)
After two hours of hiking it started to sprinkle and then drizzle. At first this was refreshing and added a little more texture to the beautiful alpine huts...
... and the famous adelweiss flowers.
I have no idea what this flower was, but the sparce petal structure sure was cool.
My general map ended up being a worthless trail map and with visibility down to about 50 meters it was time to make some decisions. The trails in this area can be confusing, even with a perfect trail map. Dad got so lost here, leading a group of soldiers on a day hike that they did not arrive until well after dark. Now I can see why!
So for those of you who know the area, at this point I am high in the mountains on the opposite side of the Konigsee from St. Bartholoma Chapel.
Starting to get wet enough to notice my ipod headphone were so waterlogged that they ceased to function the prudent thing would be to turn around and head back. So yes, I actually did this, until the intersection for heading back led to a decision to either climb up a thousand meters to the chair lifts or walking down the remaining distance. Choosing to walk turned out to be an additional three hours of “boot time” commitment, but this also provided a ski station goulash soup break from the weather.
So the net additional result was walking the total distance taken by the bus earlier in the morning, along side mountain ravines and finally on to the more punishing paved sidewalks. There is no telling what the distance traveled today was but the walking time was a little over seven hours.
I decided to have dinner at the hostel tonight. This hostel is more like a mountain hotel for young families. Meals are served family style and the parents retrieve the food from the kitchen window. After the meal, the families clear their own tables including wiping them down and putting the wooden chairs upside down on the top surface.
It is great to watch all these families in action, in one great dining hall. It is a mass community and yet everyone has their own unit.
A family close to me had three children, with one of them about nine months old, sitting between the parents on the bench seat. Both parents happened to take a bite at the same time and the little one reached for a mug to get something to drink. Not quite the master of dexterity, the weight of the mug easily slipped through his grasp and shattered on the stone floor. No one freaked out, not even the parents. The cute thing was the little tyke had both hands gripping the edge of the table, so he could get his little blonde head underneath to survey what had happened. The little guy had the most inquisitive look on his face. Where did my mug go? Up and down, on top of the table and below, he would look but couldn’t quite grasp that those little white pieces of pottery on the floor was his mug. It may be a “location” story, but it was cute none-the-less.
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