We left a little bit late that morning and had to catch the train an hour later than I had originally planned.
Upon arrival we looked eastward and saw this, our foe for the day:
Incidentally, the "mountain" that the JYMers climbed in September was really a hill on the other side of the valley from this very real very tall mountain.
We went into town briefly to get some lunch supplies for on the mountain and then crossed the river to get to the start of the trails.
They way up was kinda steep, not the worst I've climbed but certainly very tiring. There were switch-backs, but they were frequent and not terribly flat or well kept.
I also haven't really climbed a mountain in a while so part of it may have been that.
There were some nice views, like this one of Mittenwald:
Or this:
We found a memorial to someones uncle Adolf:
It says: "Many go but few actually see how nature arises and passes by. From 8-21-1969 on will our uncle Adolf Ohler stay here forever, in his beloved mountain."
All was going along as we had planned and we were making pretty good time. Soon we started finding snow here and there along the trail. As time went on we found more and more snow.
At some point along the way I muttered something about how the snow would probably start getting troublesome as we climbed higher. I had know idea I would be so right:
The snow ran up and down the mountain in drifts which we had to cross now and again. The drifts were at least 2 or 3 meters deep, if not more, and not always solidly packed. Every fifth step or so I took on the snow would plunge me waist deep into the wet snow.
After our first snow crossing we were emboldened to continue on our way and see what we could find, though I was starting to seriously doubt if we would ever make it up the mountain. The drifts did seem pretty dangerous, but they were usually short. We resolved to head back if we ever ran into something that seemed to treacherous or unmanageable.
We eventually made it to another overlook where we broke to eat some of the strawberries and raisins we had brought up from town.
Just after this overlook the path became narrower and much less well defined. Rockslides were apparently a problem here:
I enjoyed the wording on this because, literally translated, it says: "Watch out! Danger of being battered/beaten by rocks!"
Not long after this the path started to disappear. We were able to make out it's course for a short time but soon found ourselves on the side of a steep slope with snow blocking the way as far as we could see and no sign of the actual path. It was here that we realized we had reached the end of our climb, far from the top of the mountain.
They way back down was fairly uneventful and routine since we had already easily tackled the snow drifts on the way up. By this time our feet were soaked from all the snow that had melted into our boots when we stepped in deep snow.
And that was it. We tried to climb a mountain, stopped well short of the peak, but had ourselves quite the adventure in the meantime. And it's not like the views were anything to complain about.
Oh goodness.
On the train ride back we were stopped by passport controllers and asked to show our ID's. The train we were on was coming from Innsbruck Austria, meaning one would need a passport to travel over the border, but we had never left Germany. Once we explained that it wasn't any problem. I ended up talking to one of them briefly while the other made a call. I told him about our hiking and about all the snow. To that he said something like: "Hiking in the mountains here is really great, but it's probably a little early in the year to be doing that."
No kidding.
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