Friday Photo Favorite: The Höllentalklamm

The Höllentalklamm [2]: Across the joch and through the klamm

Last week we shared the first part of our day trip to Garmisch.  Our destination: the Höllentalklamm (gorge).

The map is a little chaotic, but at this point we had finally made it from bus, to train, to another train, to a gondola, to another gondola... and arrived at the Osterfelderkopf panorama viewing area (end of the upper yellow arrow).

Now we really start walking.  We're going to hike left-to-right across the Hupfleitenjoch ("joch" = pass), the name outlined in yellow just under the Osterfelderkopf.  Then we reach the last yelow box on the right, the Höllentalangerhütte ("hütte" = hut -- it's the upper border of the gorge).  We'll walk down through the Höllentalklamm (labeled on map) to the bottom yellow box (Höllentaleingangshütte, the gorge's lower border).

From here, we'll descend the rest of the way to the town of Hammersbach. At it's train station we'll board the Zugspitzbahn back to Garmisch, retracing our train & bus spaghetti schedule back to Munich.

In the above photo, we've left the panorama viewpoint and Frau A is leading the way on the trail.

Pictured below, we could see the Hupfleitenjoch ("pass") snake its way through the peaks. 

At this point, the Osterfelderkopf (the mountain we're on, taking up the left side of the photo above) is shielding our view of the Zugspitze.  As we emerge through that gap ahead on the trail, we should be able to see it...

Sure enough, 40 minutes later we make it around the bend and can see the tallest mountain in Germany (below).  If you look carefully at the bottom of the photo, you will see the trail (with a couple of other hikers) continuing on the left side, and a small white hut on the right side lying about 300m/1000ft below. 

The next photo shows the trail better.  It snakes its way along the face of the mountain, and will wrap around and disappear left again before heading back right to the hut.  It took 45 minutes to get there from here. 

Finally, we reached the hut... and discovered that it is NOT the Höllentalangerhütte that we expected.  And it was boarded up.  We figured out that we still had another 45 minutes of hiking past this before the gorge starts!

When we finally made it to the right hut, we paused and indulged in a cold apfelschorle and snacks we brought. 

Upon leaving the hut, the trail became hedged in by walls of rock and we started to see hints of the natural forces that created the gorge, like this late-summer waterfall (it's probably much stronger in the Spring)... 

...also as we descended, the water became more powerful and the trail hugged tightly to/over it.

Eventually we came to the last point of direct sunlight (for a while)!  You can barely see the top of the gorge, and the trail now becomes steps that descend rapidly along the rock face, traing to keep up with the churning water.

The tiny colored flecks at the deepest part of the photo below are a band of other hikers!

Below is a photo taken a few moments later -- showing better the trail's steps and fellow hikers ahead.
The water on the right just drops off completely to the next small pool below, and is quite noisy now.

At certain points the gorge would open up again, letting in light.  This was my chance to photograph Frau A on the stairs -- you can see the rushing water, eroding boulders, and mini waterfalls better looking back up the path.

Eventually, the gorge gets so narrow that there is no room for a path anymore -- so they carved tunnels through the rock!  Below, some hikers are entering a tunnel on the left, while others have emerged down below.

This is what the inside of the tunnels looked like.  The wires are running electricity for lights.
Some were dry like this, but others were dripping water (and slippery) and quite cold.

Some points in the tunnels had "lookout windows" that provided a view to the water again (but dark)! 

In one place the path had to change sides, so a small bridge was built to connect tunnels on either side.

Finally, after 2.7km length and 300m descent, you emerge at the bottom and see the other "hütte".

After 30 more minutes walking through a forest path, you reach the town of Hammersbach.  On the way to the train station we paused to photograph a small Bavarian church with an interesting bench outside: 

It took a while to get there (and we could have taken a more direct route), but it was worth it.  The Höllentalklamm is fascinating.  For the next time, we're thinking about hiking some trails even closer to the big Zugsptize...

The Höllentalklamm [1]: From Munich to the "AlpspiX"

Frau A and I have visited the Garmisch-Partenkirchen area a few times now, once for the Women's Skiing World Cup and another time to hike through the Partnachklamm ("klamm" = gorge).

We choose to return recently to hike through the other popular gorge in this area, the Höllentalklamm.  So we checked the train schedule for that Sunday, prepared the cameras, and loaded the backpacks. 

The train ride from Munich to Garmisch would normally take about 90 minutes.  Unfortunately, we had some early misfortune, which turned our trip into something like "Planes, Trains, and Automobiles".

To start, the regular regional trains were NOT departing from Munich due to track construction/repair.  So the Bahn provided a bus instead, a shuttle to a station beyond the track repairs.  

Due to the confusion, the busses departed perhaps 20 minutes later than the train would have.  After a half-hour ride, the bus dropped us off at a train station called Gauting.  It would normally take just 20 minutes to get there, but we were already past the 40 minute mark, with a long way to go towards the Austrian border...  

At Gauting station, a regional train was waiting.  We all boarded.  And waited.  And waited some more.  Eventually, the train departed (after the next wave of busses from Munich arrived).
With another 40 minute delay here, the total impact was now almost 1.5 hours! 

Finally we arrived at the Garmisch-Partenkirchen train station and could begin the next phase of our day...
which of course required another train ride!  This train ride was planned, however.

Let's look at the map below.  As a reference, the Partnachklamm (our prior gorge hike) can be seen on the far left, outlined in a yellow box.  The "Start" point is along the bottom, at the Garmisch train station.  From here we will: 

- Transfer to the Zugspitzbahn (black & white marked train tracks, headed left-to-right on the map)
- Disembark at the "Kreuzeckbahn" (underlined in yellow) and take this ski lift (yellow arrow) up to the Kreuzeck
- Hike up (trails are in red color on the map) to the Hochalm ("alm" = hut, bottom of the upper yellow arrow)
- Take the next gondola (upper yellow arrow) up to the Osterfelderkopf
- Hike down a bit, then trek left-to-right along the Hupfleitenjoch (outlined in yellow).
  Next milestone is the Höllentalangerhütte ("hütte" = hut, also outlined in yellow)
- Hike down through the Höllentalklamm to the Höllentaleingangshütte (the bottom yellow box)
- Hike down one last red path to the town of Hammersbach marked "End"
- Board the Zugspitzbahn (underlined in yellow) back to Garmisch, and return home to Munich

Simple, right?  That's what the hiking book said, at least!  

Thankfully, things started looking up as soon as the regional train reached Garmisch.  The weather was great, and the Zugspitzbahn is quaint (below).  It was a quick 10 minutes to our stop.  Had we stayed on, the train eventually goes into rack-rail mode and up 25% slopes to the foot of the Zugspitze, a gain of 1800m! 

It was a short walk from the Kreuzeck station to the Kreuzeckbahn (a gondola) and we boarded without delay: 

From the top of this first lift, we saw a lot of people paragliding overhead... an activity that is creeping higher and higher on our "must-try" list.  The sky was very blue, with just whisps of clouds and a slight breeze - gorgeous. 

At this point, we finally had some actual hiking to do!  From the top of the Kreuzeckbahn it takes about 30 minutes to ascend to the base of the next lift, climbing 300-400 feet over a broad, gentle trail.

The mountain views continued to get better & better along the way: 

At the base of the next gondola, some hiking trails branched out while cows were grazing... 

...but rather than take a trail down the mountain from here (or say hello to the cows, which Frau A wanted to do), we boarded the next ski lift.  Frau A held the door open while I snapped a photo.

It's not the greatest photo, but you get an idea what the view was like from inside the lift car:

This second lift brought us to the "Osterfelderkopf".  This was the height at which people were taking off with parasails (duly noted).  Also, a short hike from the lift sits a unique lookout platform called the AlpspiX.
The upper platform hangs 13 meters out from the edge of the cliff, with just steel "mesh" underfoot.

The capital "X" in name "AlpspiX" is supposed to represent the architecture of the crossing lookout platforms.
Note:  you can see the town of Garmisch in the valley below, and of course a panorama of mountains. 

 

Frau A is on the upper platform (picture below).  It's not a straight drop, but the view extends down 1000 meters!  Due to the steel "mesh" floor and plexiglass end barrier, the web site promises a "wobbly stomach".  

Wow - a bus, a train, a rack-train, a gondola, a short hike, and another gondola to a lookout!

Coming soon:  We'll share photos from the second half of this trip in a follow-up post.  From here we head across the face of the Hupfleitenjoch.  This will provide views of the Zugspitze, and entrance to the Hollental gorge.