Blog Posts in Category: Mountaineering

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…

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…

Hinteres Hörnle

Alastair BegleyBavaria, Walking Short Link

The weather forecast for this weekend changed every day last week, one day it was sunny, the next raining, then sunny again, but it generally settled on not very good, but possibly dry. We elected to stay as far north as possible in the hope that the edge of the mountains had the better weather, and based on the views this seemed like a good decision. We decided to head back to Hinteres Hörnle, which I skied earlier this year with Helen. On our walk up it became apparent that we could not do our planned descent due to closures due to logging, however as it turned out this meant we did a far nicer loop. The ascent was fairly steep up in the woods, however it was fascinating seeing the incredibly bright green spring leaves, especially with the contrast against the evergreen trees. As we emerged above the treeline it was clear that we had made a good decision to stay north, as there was lots of cloud about, and it was very hazy. We made good time up to the summit, briefly enjoyed the view and then quickly. Read the full article…

Vorderunnütz

Alastair BegleyAustria, Walking Short Link

Poor weather dominated most of the bank holiday weekend in Bavaria, however thankfully there was a brief abatement to the rain in the mountains from Sunday evening to Monday late morning. After enjoying sunset at Ammersee last night, Rob and I made the most of the easing of restrictions and headed over the Austrian border to the Achensee. Our peak was the Vorderunnütz, which turned out to be a lovely walk with excellent views of the local Austrian peaks. Given the rain which was forecast from 11, we met relatively early at 7:30 expecting to get fairly wet on the descent, but hoping to get to the summit before the rain. Despite a number of photo stops, we made excellent time on the ascent over 1100m in just over 2 hours, which certainly got the blood flowing! Despite the lack of sunlight, the views were excellent as the air was clear, and it was great to be out in another new area. We could see the weather closing in as we started the descent, but due to a quick descent we were almost back before the rain really set in.. Read the full article…

Über die drei Kampen

Alastair BegleyBavaria, Walking Short Link

After the effort of the snow up high the previous day we were keen to have a slightly easier day, a few weeks previously from the Hirschberg I had noticed a ridge which looked excellent, and more importantly with a high point of only 1600m. It was a fairly long walk in in the woods from Lenggries to the Hirschtalsattel, however the woods provided us with some shelter from the sun.

Friederspitz and Frieder

Alastair BegleyBavaria, Walking Short Link

Having not been in the mountains for a while, combined with a week with a mixture of fresh snow and rain in the mountains, before it suddenly warmed up for the weekend, it was hard to know how high we could go without the snow being very hard work. We took a chance and headed to Frieder as we knew the view from the top with the clear air that we were expecting would be brilliant. On the drive towards the mountains in the morning it was quite clear that the air was indeed very clear, and a good sign of the views we were going to have. From the car park we gained 400m easily up a forrest track, and then another 500m easily up a winding path to just below the Frieder-Alm. Here we met the snow, and our progress slowed down significantly. Thankfully another team had gone up in front of us, so we mostly had food prints to follow, however this did not make progress easy. The difficult progress was more than made up for by the stunning views in every direction. We could see well. Read the full article…

Hirschberg

Alastair BegleyBavaria, Winter Walking Short Link

With winter stubbornly refusing to depart from Bavaria, Louise and I decided to head to the Hirschberg as it looked a great circuit, and not to long of a day. The initial ascent was pretty brutal, straight up the ski piste, which certainly got the blood flowing. Thankfully we were soon above the ski area and ascended up in the woods. Despite there being plenty of snow, it was all well trampled which made progress easy. When we emerged from the woods at the Rauheck Alm, it became clear that despite the weather being good we were not going to get outstanding views as the air was so hazy. We took the direct winter ascent up to the Hirschberg Vorgipfel, and then made the short detour out to the main summit of Hirschberg. Despite the haze the view from the top was great, I could see a number of recent walks and a number of walks which I am really keen to do. After enjoying some lunch we started the descent which was pretty straightforward thanks to the snow being the prefect consistency for descending. From the summit of Kratzer. Read the full article…

Roßstein and Hochplatte

Alastair BegleyBavaria, Winter Walking Short Link

Due to the fresh snow we knew that route choice was key for the last day while Becky was here, however we also wanted to do a route with some interest and a reasonable amount of time above the tree line. We decided to head up Roßstein, descend to the Tegernseer Hütte, drop down to the north, climb back up to Hochplatte and then take the easy descent back down to the car. We set off on a sunny and relatively warm morning and made good progress on the relatively snow free ascent up to the Sonneberg Alm. The sun was really warm despite it being early, but the views were wonderful. From the alm the route up the Roßstein looked improbable, but unsurprisingly it was fine as it snaked its way up a hidden line of weakness. We made it to the summit without putting our spikes on, however after enjoying some lunch and the view we put our spikes on for the descent to the Tegernseer Hütte and down to the north, as the start of the descent was more exposed and the descent from the Hütte was. Read the full article…