Road trip!

Well, only for a weekend. But the more significant part is that I was able to spend a weekend with friends from church and escape the inflexibility of rail travel. Four of us decided we'd go camping down in the Austrian/Bavarian alps, and set off Friday evening in Micah's old VW Jetta stuffed with camping gear and a couple guitars.

Its been abnormally cold and rainy in Europe the last couple weeks (highs in the 50's in Stuttgart!) so we were prepared for the wet and cold as we set up camp after dark Friday night. We were somewhere around [here] in Austria, well off the road near a small riverbed that looked like it gets serious water in the spring.

Plansee in northern Austria

The next morning we broke camp in dry weather and stopped to see the nearby Plansee [here] in the daylight. Then we headed around towards Garmish [Here], a sizable Bavarian town nestled in the mountains. Nearby is the highest mountian in Germany (The Zugspitze... 10,000ft [Here]) where we hiked around. The trail we picked started off along a large creek, then began rising abruptly as we reached the shear cliffs at the end of the valley. But partway up was a small "hut" that was accesible by trail blasted out of the rock. There are huts all through the mountains in Europe, and they are basically sophisticated hiking shelters that usually are staffed and have food available. This hut guarded the entrance to a deep, narrow gorge (Höllental- valley of hell) that we would return by.

^ Hiking around the Zugspitze. The location of the hut (far below) is noted.

Valley, looking toward the Zugspitze >

Trail "crossing"... The other trail was down about 200 feet!>>

The trail then turned to "experienced hikers only" as a sign warned of dangerous terrain and for those with fear of heights to turn back. This latter was justified with a precarious section of the trail with cliff up and down from the trail. As we progressed up a steep, narrow valley, what appeared to be rejoining of the trails on the map was in fact a 200ft miss... in the vertical direction!

We eventually rejoined the pale blue stream that threaded through the massive shoulders of the mountians and began following it down into Höllental. All I can say is WOW! The gorge was on average maybe 30ft wide and 200-300ft deep, and it had severe contortions from the action of the raging stream. The trail was either a shelf blasted safely above the stream or a serious of narrow tunnels with openings every few yards.

Gorge from the bridge

Trail in Höllental... more than a mile of this! ^

Bridge from the gorge. It didn't rain on the hike, but it was pouring down here.

After emerging from the gorge at the hut, we made our way back to the car. Micah stopped into the US compound at Garmish and picked up fixings for good 'ole american burgers. (Handy traveling with an american with such priveleges!) This time we found a road heading way up the side of a hill (actually not to far from where we spent the previous night) and BBQ'd up some monster burgers.

The next morning (Sunday now) we got up at the crack of dawn, packed out, and drove back to Stuttgart (3 hours) in time to get Martin to church to play in the second service. The autobahn is amazing early sunday mornings. Except that Jettas seem to have limiters at 135mph. After a great service, a bunch of us went out for döners again, and after getting a shower, we went over to Martin's place for jamming, games, and a movie to round out the weekend. I think I'm gonna miss these people.