On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
BigJimSlade
Looking ahead at the weather, we saw a clear day coming up and took advantage of that to go up the Zugspitze.
Zugspitze is the highest peak in Germany. For the record, the tippy-top of Zugspitze is about 15 feet higher than the top platform (maybe a bit more, but it didn’t look like much), and you can walk atop some rocks in a line with a bunch of other people to get to the cross on top if you like. We didn’t bother. It’s also on the border with Austria (the highest peak in Austria is about 2,500 feet higher!).
There are 2 ways up and down. We went up the cog railway from Garmisch-Partenkirchen, which takes you 95% of the way up (actually, you start on a normal train, then switch to a cog train), then you take a gondola (or hike something of an adventure trail up the steep rocks of the mountainside) for a few minutes to get to the top. On the way down, we took the fancy, big gondola back down to Eibsee. From there we walked back home again. (Home being a studio apartment in a guest house.)
Traveller
Lovely…but I really especially liked, “embiggen…”
I do anyhow, they are great photos. Best Wishes, Traveller (Thanks for the view)
oldster
Just to the NW of Garmisch there is a pleasant walk you can take up to the Kramerspitze. I have never made it to the top. But twice, many years apart, I have walked part-way up and stopped at the Sankt Martin Guest House, and had their delicious food and looked south over the whole valley from a few thousand feet. The Zugspitze is visible on the right edge of the panorama, and Austria is visible for the rest of it.
Halfway up is a memorial chapel for the local soldiers, Kriegergedächtniskapelle Garmisch. It’s a very modest building whose exterior is covered with a few hundred photographs of dead fathers and grandfathers, with their names, ranks, regiments, and places of death. All Nazis, of course, most of them having died in Russia. They were engaged in a horrible wrong, and most of them did horrible things. They left their tiny alpine village and spread misery throughout Europe and whatever Russia is. Then, the Americans came and set up a giant military base for many decades, and life got better in many ways. I would be curious to hear how the chapel got built, probably in the ’60s, whether the local authorities asked permission from the occupying power or not.
It’s not a site built for tourists; it was clearly built by local families for their own use. But it is very worth seeing.
lee
That looks exactly like the vacation my wife and I have envisioned for Germany.
divF
In 1958-1960 my father was stationed with the US Army in Bavaria and we lived in military housing in Garmisch. I remember being 6 years old and sitting on a balcony off our living room with a lovely view of the Zugspitze. No recollection of going to the top of the mountain, although I remember family picnics in the foothills.
MelissaM
The long sausage in a small roll thing cracks me up, but it works. You bite the sausage, nibble the roll – all good! Besides, that roll was baked fresh that morning! Austrians and Germans would be horrified by our hot dog buns (I’m horrified by them, too, but a Chicago dog isn’t one without it.)
eclare
Lovely photos!
Yutsano
Germany is amazingly pretty. You have the mountains in the south, the farm fields in the centre, and the lowlands leading to the North and Baltic seas. You definitely captured the mountains of Bayern well!
Doug
I climbed the Zugspitze in, like, 2002 via Höllentalklamm (“Hell’s valley gorge”) and the Zugspitze glacier, along with two places where climbing gear was necessary. It was great! Then we took the cable car back down. Easiest descent ever.
@oldster, the Wikipedia page for that chapel is sparse, but says it was built in 1952. By then, permission from the occupation authorities would not nave been required. West Germany joined NATO three years later.
Mike in Pasadena
The buildings atop die Zugspitze in 1971 when I was there were a shadow of what they are now. Thanks for the photos. A lot can change in 50 years.
BigJimSlade
@oldster: I googled Kramerspitze and I see that it’s across the valley from Zugspitze, Alpspitze, and all the gondolas/ski areas. I was wondering why nothing was built for the other side.
BigJimSlade
@divF: I was wondering if anybody reading these posts would have spent any time stationed there, and what their time there was like :-)
BigJimSlade
@MelissaM: I should’ve tried to buy an extra roll – there was enough sausage for two of them. It would’ve been even more delicious!
BigJimSlade
@Doug: I looked into that, but it’s a long day (some descriptions said to start before 6am, and there’s the 7,500 feet of elevation to contend with!), and when it comes to needing a helmet on the via ferrata, we’ll choose a more normal trail. But it sounds awesome – I am a bit jealous :-)
Anyway
Nice photos – looks like a fun trip. I was out hiking in Chamonix and Geneva last month. Mont Blanc and other Swiss and French glaciers have melted at a terrifying rate – it was very sad.
oldster
@Doug:
Thanks for the info, Doug!
It’s a moving site. But I don’t want to come across as though I am focusing on the wrong tragedy!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rk3lcEeoEy8
Doug
@BigJimSlade:
I’m pretty sure that before 6am is indeed when we started. Early or mid-May, iirc, so plenty of light. We all got up even earlier to drive down from Munich, but that wasn’t so unusual for one-day hikes and climbs. Ten years in Munich, went up and down a great many peaks in the area. It was great!
Also climbed Slovenia’s highest peak, which happily has a big lodge on a plateau about 200m below the summit, so you can spend a very pleasant night there. I think back then I could have managed the Grossglockner (Austria’s highest), but when I look at Italy/Switzerland/France, I just say “fuck me” and am glad to keep my feet on the ground. From Interlaken, I have seen the north face of the Eiger, and it is a monster. Just a monster.
The Höllentalklamm is a neat hike. Lots of the path is short tunnels dug (or maybe blasted) out of the mountain. Very dramatic! And the valley at the top of the Klamm is gorgeous. Several of the valleys, especially over in Austria, made me think I had climbed up into Rivendell.
Thanks for giving me a reason to revisit these memories!
Doug
@oldster:
Glad to help and no worries! People mourn their losses, even (especially?) if they fell in a cause that was wrong.
BigJimSlade
@Doug: Drove from Munich first! Lol.
We hiked under the Eiger, but not up it (and I posted OTRs for that hike). We did enjoy this guy’s video about walking up the west face. He’s very dry.
We went through the Höllentalklamm – I covered it a bit 2 posts ago (we were short of money to get out!).
Argiope
@Doug: Just catching up with all of these at the long end of the work day but I enjoyed hearing about these spots!
And the photos from BigJim, of course!
Doug
@BigJimSlade:
“we were short of money to get out!”
Oh right, now I remember!
@Argiope: Glad you like!