Auf die Zugspitze
To get to the top of the highest mountain in Germany, the Zugspitze, you can take a Seilbahn (cable car) from a pristine Alpine lake that takes about ten minutes. For a slower experience, you can go up via the Zahnradbahn (cogwheel train) over steep rock faces and through several tunnels. Or you can hike about 15 miles — and gain more than a mile of elevation — as you climb to the summit on the German-Austrian border. It was a blast.
I’ve always enjoyed hiking and am grateful to live so close to the Catskill, Adirondack and Berkshire mountains. But the Alps are a much younger mountain range, which means the peaks are steeper and the rock is more jagged because there’s been less time for erosion to smooth them out. There are incredible landscapes throughout southern Germany where a jagged tooth rises steeply from the side of a lake that’s bluer than the sky.
I finished my fellowship at the end of September and was joined by a friend from New York for a week of vacation. We carbed up at Oktoberfest, then set out by train on Monday morning from Munich to Garmisch-Partenkirchen – a one-time Olympic venue at the base of the Alps that reminded me a lot of Lake Placid. The first stop was Partnachklamm, a 100-foot gorge where the sound of rushing water distracts you from the darkness. We followed the Partnach through the Reintal Valley, around to the opposite side of Zugspitze from Garmisch, and arrived at the mountain hut where we would spend the night.
There’s no U.S. equivalent to the hut system. Trails in National Parks will be dotted with camp sites and lean-tos every few miles, but hikers have to carry in sleeping bags, tents, and anything they want to eat and drink. The result is a massive pack and sore knees. On our journey up the hill, though, it seemed like every few kilometers there was a hut offering to sell us a beer. We felt it was important to support that system.
As such, hiking in Germany felt more accessible than in the U.S. Huts like the one where we stayed abound, and we met several people who were going for days at a time without a particular plan. The German verb for hiking is wandern, and it seemed possible to truly just wander.
We were the only Americans who spent the night in Reintalangerhütte. It’s set just below the tree line and has room for more than 100 hikers. People slept in rooms with a series of mattresses next to each other on a bunk; we were in a room with two insurance professionals from Hamburg and some other guy who we didn’t speak with. We had dinner and played rummy with a young guy who was apprenticed to be a firefighter in Bremen. We saw many of them on the trail the following day.
It was more challenging than the first. We got above tree line after an hour, climbing out of the valley and onto acres and acres of stone. It was a mostly dead landscape, dried by the sun, worn by legions of boots and cracked by years of freezing and melting snow. At times we were higher than the circling crows. The trail led to a plateau that in the winter is the center of a massive ski bowl. It’s the terminus of the cogwheel train, and there’s another Seilbahn that can whisk you to the summit. I read in a guidebook that this was a decision point between five minutes or 1.5 hours. We ate some GORP and then started our climb.
The first stretch was loose stone on a roughly 60-degree slope. We tried to find sure footing with each step, but inevitably ended up bracing at times with our hands. I’m generally not afraid of heights, but it was certainly a “don’t look back” situation. The ground firmed up, but the angle increased. We used cables that were bolted into the rock. The final ridge line was the border between Germany and Austria, and we rested with a foot in both countries. The stairs led us to the German side of the summit, but we decided to have lunch in the Austrian restaurant.
And yes, we had another beer.
THE QUESTION: Zugspitze is the highest mountain in Germany. What’s the highest mountain in Europe?
Know the answer? Drop me a line at jimmy.vielkind@gmail.com. Or just write with thoughts, feedback or to say hi.
THE LAST ANSWER: Otto von Guericke (sorry about the typo last week) demonstrated the power of vacuums when he put two hemispheres together, sucked out the air within them, and showed that two teams of horses couldn’t pull them apart. He’s probably Magdeburg’s most famous son!