Having last completed the Mittenwald Höhenweg shortly after having moved to Munich 5 years ago, we decided to head back to do it again as we had enjoyed it so much last time, however this time I had a plan to save on the descent by flying off from the German/Austrian border back down to Mittenwald.
We were expecting the route to be busy, given that it was still the school holidays and it was the only nice day of the weekend, but we were not quite prepared for how busy the route would actually be. We arrived at the lift station and were ready for 9am, however we had to queue for sometime as the lift was so busy.
As we left the lift station we eagerly climbed the first section so that we would emerge from the shade into the sun, especially me as I was still in a t-shirt. Thankfully it did not take us long to emerge into the sunshine, however at this point we saw how many people were gearing up for the klettersteig.
We joined the crowds and patiently waited in the queue, as to be fair most people did for the majority of the route. There were only a few pushy people for the entire route which was nice, everyone else just accepted that the speed was slow and that was how it was. At least the slow pace on the route gave us plenty of time to soak in the wonderful views.
As per my memory the route itself was actually very easy and I spent most of the route not clipped in, however this is more than made up for by the wonderful positions that you end up in, along with the wonderful views into the Karwendel, towards Garmisch-Partenkirchen, over the Wettersteingebirge, the Nordkette and south towards the main alpine ridge.
Due to the slow pace we arrived at the highest point on the route around lunchtime, which gave us a good excuse to stop for some lunch with a wonderful view. From here there was not much of the route left and we were soon at the end of the route.
I had expected to be taking off to the south, but as we were slower than expected the valley wind had started blowing up the mountain. However this was no problem as there was a very small grassy slope facing directly into the valley wind, which provided an easy take off, however certainly a take off which requires wind as it was very short and pretty steep.
The flight down to the valley was enjoyable with wonderful views and certainly much quicker than walking down.
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