Hörndlwand Climbing – Die Gnadenlosen Drei

Alastair BegleyBavaria, Rock Climbing Short Link

With a day of hot weather and a good forecast we decided to head back to where I had recently been walking on another hot day, as I knew that it meant that we would be climbing out of the sun. We headed back to the Hörndlwand in the Chiemgau for some multi pitch traditional climbing. The crag is fairly complex which lots of corners, and routes which can be linked together. However from the guide we struggled to work out what could be linked, so decided to just stick to one of the suggestions at the start of the guide. We climbed “Die Gnadenlosen Drei” a two star UIAA 5 route which was a 200m 8 pitch route. This route linked the following routes: Nordwestsockel – UIAA 4+ – 80m – 3 pitches Merklriss – UIAA 5 – 35m – 1 pitch Mittlere Nordwand – UIAA 4 – 55m – 2 pitches The walk up was very warm, but thankfully mostly in the shade, and we were very glad to confirm that the route was entirely in the shade when we arrived at the Hörndlalm. We were also pleased. Read the full article…

Piz Buin and Dreiländerspitze

Alastair BegleyAlpinism, Austria Short Link

Previously alpine mountaineering was firmly limited to the main holiday of the year, but having moved to Munich it is now possible to do it over a weekend, this was a concept that I spent a large amount of the weekend being amazed by! We stayed at the Wiesbadener Hütte for two nights, with an aim of climbing Piz Buin on the first day, and Dreiländerspitze on the second day if the weather was perfect. After weeks of wondering if the snow was ever going to go away, and then it being far too hot, we were lucky to have a perfect weekend with relatively cool temperatures and excellent weather. It was a brilliant weekend with great company, excellent mountains, sometimes challenging card games in a wonderful mountain hut environment with a friendly guardian. Walk In After finishing work slightly early, but evidently not early enough, we drove down to the Bielerhöhe in the Silvretta Alpen. This was an excellent place to start a walk in as the car park was at 2040m, which significantly reduced the ascent. Unfortunately there was a considerable amount of traffic on the drive down,. Read the full article…

Hörndlwand

Alastair BegleyBavaria, Walking Short Link

With the temperatures set to be above 30°C for at least the third day in a row we had to make the decision about hiding from the heat and not making the most of the weekend, or accepting the unrelenting heat and heading out for a hot walk. We decided to head out for a walk, but starting fairly early. We left Munich at 6:30, which we thought would be early enough to guarantee a space in the car park, but we were wrong as it seemed numerous people had the same idea, thankfully we got the last space in a location very near to the car park! Due to the heat there was some additional criteria for the route compared to normal: Not too long Not too much ascent Finishing at a lake Ascent in the shade We managed to find a route which fulfilled all of these criteria in the Chiemgau, as the ascent was either in the woods, or up the north side of the mountain, and due to the bus route down the valley we could make the walk a linear route finishing at a bathing. Read the full article…

Hochplatte (Ammergauer Alpen)

Alastair BegleyBavaria, Walking Short Link

With the weather looking better in the afternoon, Rob and I decided to stay a bit more local and head to the Hochplatte in the Ammergauer Alpen. We left the car park at 2pm, having taken the spaces from people who had presumably already finished for the day. This late start had the advantage that we were out in the better weather, and also that when we were on the summit we had the mountain to ourselves, however it had the distinct disadvantage that we were walking up the very steep ascent in the worst of the afternoon heat. The after a relatively gentle warm up for the first 10 minutes we came across an interesting “bridge” over the river. This involved balancing on logs, and then over a dodgy looking ladder. Thankfully neither of us got wet, but we did both clock the deep pools for a post walk cool off. The rest of the ascent was fairly straightforwards, if very hot in the sun. Very hot we soon arrived at the Weitalpjoch where the view over the Ammergauer Alpen really opened up, and it was certainly a fantastic. Read the full article…

Entschenkopf

Alastair BegleyBavaria, Walking Short Link

With an easing of restrictions we were able to head somewhere with more than two households in the car, which was a very nice change. After some changes in the group size, and a few changes in objective, we settled on the Entschenkopf. We chose the route as it was relatively low for the Allgäu, which hopefully meant that it would be snow free, but the route looked like an excellent ridge and there was even a lake on the descent to cool off in. After getting to the car park just in time to get one of the last few parking spaces, we headed off up the Gaisalpbach, which was a beautiful gorge full of waterfalls and walkways. Unfortunately as we left the gorge the woods started thin out and we increasingly spent more time ascending in the sun, which was very hot! We were soon at the top off the tree line, and the start of the ascent up to the Entschenkopf ridge. This was very hot, but the views were beautiful, if very hazy. There was also a large assortment of beautiful alpine flowers, which framed the. Read the full article…

Aggenstein

Alastair BegleyBavaria, Walking Short Link

I was certainly not happy with my 5:30 alarm after a late night the previous night due to watching sunset from the Jochberg after work, however we knew that the best of the weather was in the morning and due to heading to the Allgäu we had a longer than usual drive. We had decided to continue to make the most of being allowed into Austria, as while the start, finish and peak were all in Germany, the last part of the ascent was firmly in Austria, and more importantly so was the pre summit Hütte. The start of the walk was beautiful, and fairly relaxing as the lift station was not at the bottom of the steep ascent, so we enjoyed the warm up walking through the alpine meadows filled with spring flowers. However we were soon in the woods, and slogging up the ascent, which after the previous nights fast ascent of Jochberg certainly felt harder than it should have. We enjoyed some food at a brief clearing before heading up the steep slopes towards the Bad Kissinger Hütte. We stopped for a well earned drink at the. Read the full article…

Jochberg Sunset

Alastair BegleyBavaria, Landscape Short Link

James and I decided to make the most of the longer evenings by heading over to the Jochberg for a sunset hike. Being only a short walk and only 90 mins from home it was an obvious choice, with the sun setting so far north at the moment, I was hoping for some lovely evening light/alpenglow over the Karwendel, however sadly this was not to be! The walk up was very straightforwards, and we certainly made good time up it as we were at the summit less than an hour after leaving the car. Here it looked like it was shaping up to be a great sunset, and we enjoyed dinner and a beer while we waited. Unfortunately cloud build up on the horizon towards the sunset, which meant that we didn’t actually get a sunset, nonetheless the soft evening light was pleasant up to the point the sun went behind the clouds, and it was lovely to be out in the sun for an evening. Once the sun went behind the cloud we decided to leave, as we had an early start the next morning to beat the thunderstorms. Read the full article…

Kohlbergspitze

Alastair BegleyAustria, Walking Short Link

With a good forecast for the day Rob and I headed back to Austria to enjoy our access to the bigger mountains. While we wanted to enjoy the bigger mountains, we had to be careful not to head too high due to the amount of snow. We elected to do the Kohlbergspitze which is between Bichlbach and the Plansee. This was the weekend where I have switched from my winter boots to trainers, and I really hope I don’t need to go back, it was so much more enjoyable being out in soft, light trainers! The route we decided to do was a round tour, which went up a scramble which we hoped would be ok with the snow. As it was south facing and it looked OK from the valley, we decided to go for it. The ascent out of the valley was brutal, between leaving the main valley path and getting to the summit there was 1150m of ascent in 4km! We made good time up the path in the woods and soon separated from the main track. As we walked along and ascended above the treeline the. Read the full article…