Hasentalkopf

Wanting to make the most of the autumnal walking conditions Rob, Helen and I headed out to an area of the Ammergauer Alpen which none of us had been to before. Rob chose this walk because the contours looked “interesting” on the map, which seemed as good a reason as any to select a route, and the shape of the mountain was certainly unusual! As the previous day had been much sunnier the roads, and more importantly, the hills were very quiet. The start of the walk headed up a quiet valley in the forrest, however we soon left the track and headed up a small path. It didn’t feel like other walking I had done in the area, and felt much more remote was which really nice. As we arrived at the Bäckenalmsattel we were treated to a wonderful view to the west, which just became better as we climbed. We were soon able to see our objective, and the strange bowl below it. The best way to describe it was that it looked like the middle of an old volcano due to the depth and lack of runoff. Read the full article…

Seinskopf-Schöttelkarspitze Circuit

With Becky visiting for the weekend and a good weather forecast we wanted to make the most of our local mountains and the beautiful autumnal views. We decided to head down to do a walk from Krün, which is only 90 minutes from Munich! We did a circuit up to the Seinskopf which then traversed a ridge over to the popular Schöttelkarspitze and then descended down the other side past the Soiernhaus before heading back to Krün. The ascent was abrupt and most of the height gain was up to the Seinskopf, but as the path was good it didn’t feel too bad and we made excellent time. Thanks to the wonderful autumn colours it was far more enjoyable ascending in the woods than normal. When we started to approach the tree line we were treated to some brilliant views over towards the Zugspitze and a sign of the day to come. The views from the Seinskopf were just brilliant, with the big glacial valleys and the towns of Krün and Mittenwald contrasting against the German alps, with a sneak peak into the Austrian alps as well. The walk along. Read the full article…

Bavaria Landscape Photography – Geroldsee

This is the third blog in a three part series from a long weekend of Landscape photography in southern Bavaria. I recently moved to Munich and my first visitor was David, who visited for a weekend of landscape photography. This provided an excellent opportunity to explore as the entire area was still very new to me. Bavaria Landscape Photography – Exploring Bavaria Landscape Photography – Berchtesgaden Bavaria Landscape Photography – Geroldsee On the last morning of our trip we were starting to feel fairly fatigued by the constant 4am starts, but with a perfect forecast we couldn’t help but go out for another classic location. It doesn’t take much searching on the internet to find some superb photos from this classic location, and given that we were at the end of summer that is clearly shown by the track which has been worn on the way up to the “photographers ledge”. It was a short walk in from the car park, and I am glad that we had explored the location on a dreary evening a few days previously. In the dark, having not been there before, it would have been. Read the full article…

Bavaria Landscape Photography – Berchtesgaden

This is the second blog in a three part series from a long weekend of Landscape photography in southern Bavaria. I recently moved to Munich and my first visitor was David, who visited for a weekend of landscape photography. This provided an excellent opportunity to explore as the entire area was still very new to me. We had booked to stay away in Berchtesgaden overnight and fortunately this coincided with the best weather of our weekend. Due to this we wanted to make the most of this opportunity and after a lot of research we decided to drive down from Munich in the middle of the night for a sunrise, spent the day exploring, shot a slightly disappointing sunset before getting up at the crack of dawn and walking up a hill for a stunning sunrise. We then drove across the Bavarian alps to get back to Munich, but this is included in the exploring blog post. Hintersee You don’t need to do much searching to find Hintersee as one of the classic photography locations in Berchtesgaden, so it was no surprise on a Sunday morning to find that we. Read the full article…

Bavaria Landscape Photography – Exploring

This is the first blog in a three part series from a long weekend of Landscape photography in southern Bavaria. I recently moved to Munich and my first visitor was David, who visited for a weekend of landscape photography. This provided an excellent opportunity to explore as the entire area was still very new to me. Bavaria Landscape Photography – Exploring Bavaria Landscape Photography – Berchtesgaden Bavaria Landscape Photography – Geroldsee This blog focusses on exploring without a specific objective or location in mind, either due to poor weather, or due to needing to get back to Munich from a specific location. While it didn’t produce photos as good as the more thought out locations, it was in many ways far more enjoyable as we were constantly moving, and just stopping when we saw something that we liked. Poor weather near Munich The start of our trip did not have good weather, but that was OK as it gave us a few lie ins, and more importantly allowed us to drink some beer and eat some Bavarian food. Exploring Kochelsee / Walchensee On the first day which wasn’t forecast to be. Read the full article…

Summer Holiday 2020 Summary

We have recently finished a brilliant holiday in the German Alps and the Dolomites. It was great to have a holiday with excellent conditions after the mixed year so far due to Coronavirus. This post contains a summary of the photos from the trip in 27 photos. We started the trip with a day trip into the Bavarian Alps from Munich, due to the next 2 days having pretty poor weather (and the only bad weather we had on the trip). Mittenwalder Höhenweg Klettersteig After a day in Munich we then drove down to the Brenta Dolomites to do a hut-to-hut trip through the high mountains. These via ferratas are very different to the rest of the Dolomites and can be best described as ledges and ladders in surreal positions. The two day trip through the mountains was incredible and is highly recommended. Brenta Dolomites Day 1/2: Sentiero Alfredo Benini & Sentiero Bocchette Alte Sunset, Astro and Sunrise from Rifugio Alimonta Brenta Dolomites Day 2/2: Via delle Bocchette Centrale We then had a relocation day to the central Dolomites. For the rest of the trip we based ourselves in the. Read the full article…

Saas Pordoi Via Maria Climb

On the last day of out holiday we decided to climb the classic Via Maria up the south face of the Sass Pordoi. This is a 370m 8 pitch climb (+ 3 pitches of moving together at the top) which is graded at VI+ or about UK Hard Severe. As it was a long route we wanted to leave plenty of time, and we didn’t really want to spend the day queueing if we could avoid it we decided to have a really early start. This worked out as we were the first team on the route, however as it turns out there was actually only one other team on the route that day anyway! As it was a long route, and I have had previous issues with the Rockfax guidebook I searched around the internet for better route descriptions. I found this one which seemed much better for most of the route: https://www.multi-pitch.com/climbs/via-maria-on-sass-pordoi-south-face/ After a harsh start to the day with the steep climb out of the car park, with tired legs we were soon at the climb. Most of the climbing was brilliant with good rock and interesting. Read the full article…

Passo Pordoi Sunrise

We were meant to be getting an early start to ensure we were first on the route, but despite my best efforts I could not avoid taking a photo of the stunning sunrise which occurred from the Pordoi Pass while we were gearing up. The first photo is taken handheld at high iso as I was still trying to not get the gear out, but eventually my resistance failed and the tripod came out for the second photo. Landscape photography does not get much more accessible than this, as they were literally taken from a tarmac car park!