Skiing On Germany's Top, at 2950 m Above Bremen Level.

I went Skiing today! It was absolutely amazing at this place; I was really blown away. Wow.

Look how happy I was:



Our little day trip out to the mountains began this morning at 6:50, or so, as we waited on the platform for the U-Bahn to arrive. We had a 7:32 train to catch at the Hauptbahnhof and the timing was starting to look tight. We had to wait until about 7:10 for the U-Bahn to arrive and we found ourselves sprinting towards the train, catching it about a minute or less before it left.

Our destination: Garmisch-Partenkirchen, home of the 1936 Winter Olympics and, more importantly, a town at the foot of the Zugspitze, Germany's highest peak. We bought our passes from a rather irate woman at the ticket office and soon hopped onto another train that would carry us up the mountain. The ride was long and we often stopped for 10 minutes at a time for no particular reason, but at least the scenery was wonderful. At one point we stopped inside a tunnel for at least 15 minutes. I don't know why; it was rather annoying.

In that tunnel we saw a sign denoting the elevation above the city of Bremen. I always thought elevation was done above sea level...

Eventually we made it to the top. After picking up skis and boots and poles we walked outside the lodge to our first magnificent view of the Alps. It was almost overwhelming; I found myself marveling at the scenery the entire time we were on the mountain. It's funny how most of the people around seemed fairly used to it or at least not as impressed as I was. Weird.

In no particualr order, here are some of the best pictures I took:






Wow. That sure beats any ski experience I've had, ever. I'm used to being able to see flat valley all around, along with the bottom of the slope, From the top of the hill. The slopes were also pretty solid, with one run that at 2.9 km long; that's 1.8 mile! On top of that, these particular runs are fairly average compared to some other ones I've seen elsewhere in Germany.

As you've already seen, the weather was beautiful. We were really lucky. At times I was too warm wearing my ski jacket and standing in the sunlight.

Surprisingly, the place was not too crowded, given the weather and the weekend. We never had to wait long for lifts and the hills were never congested. Great.

Speaking of lifts, they had a lot of these rather goofy t-shaped lifts you sat on, sort of like a really long tow-rope. They looked like this:



My only complaint was that these "t-lifts" weren't terribly restful. By the end of the day my legs were getting sore and it would have been wonderful to sit down once in a while, but I'd rather tough it out and ski if I had to choose between.

Overall, a really good experience. The scenery was spectacular, the prices weren't terrible (for a ski slope), and the conditions were great. Never before have I skied on real powdery fresh mountain snow; I don't think they even have snow machines at this place and they can still be open until April. I was impressed as well with my ability to pick skiing up again after having snowbladed for so long. My snowblades at home are much shorter, lighter, and more maneuverable that skis but, after 3 or 4 runs in the skis, I didn't have too much trouble flying down the hills.

I'm looking at doing some more skiing next weekend, in Austria maybe, and, after seeing what skiing is like in this part of the world, I can't wait to head back out.

That's all for now. Remind me to tell you about swimming in an outdoor heated swimming pool sometime. I did that on Saturday.