Bavaria Landscape Photography – Exploring

Alastair BegleyBavaria, Landscape Short Link

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

Alastair BegleyBavaria, Dolomites, Landscape, Mountaineering, Rock Climbing, Via Ferrata Short Link

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

Alastair BegleyDolomites, Rock Climbing Short Link

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

Alastair BegleyDolomites, Landscape Short Link

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!