After an aborted trip to cycle in the mountains due to a broken down car, we decided to make the most of the sunny autumnal day with a walk along the Isar and then down through the Englischer Garten. Due to the very warm weather we have had until recently, it was still a little early for the full autumnal colours to be out in Munich, however there were still some lovely colours around.
We headed back to the classic circuit of the Brecherspitz with some friends who were visiting Munich as it is very easy todo with public transport and is also an enjoyable route with an nice ridge, wonderful summit views, an excellent Alm on the descent and a bus to save the knees from Spitzingsattel. We made quick time up to the Ankel Alm, which was unfortunately shut in the week due to it being the end of the season, although this did mean that we could eat our lunch by the alm. It was here that we started to see some lovely autumnal colours appearing on the deciduous trees. Once we joined the ridge the views were wonderful, and just kept improving as we climbed higher. The north ridge was fairly quiet which was pleasant, although this did give us a shock when we arrived at the very busy summit. After admiring the views and a few photos we started the descent down to the Obere Firstalm for a well earned beer and Kaiserschmarrn, before the easy descent down the road to the Spitzingsattel.
After doing a sunset hike up the Rotwand a few days earlier, we decided to do another sunset hike after work. As it was a post work hike, with an early autumn sunset, it had to be both close to Munich and a short walk. This meant that the Kranzhorn seemed like the obvious choice, as it was an easy drive on the Motorway towards Kufstein, before parking at a high Wanderparkplatz which meant that we only had 425m of ascent and 2.7km to walk to get to the summit. After a quick ascent we were at the summit in 50 mins, which gave us plenty of time to admire the view before the sunset and to eat our sandwiches. I couldn’t find any compositions which had any foreground interest, so it was a simple composition just consisting of the view towards the setting sun. There were some high clouds which remained after sunset which gave a beautiful afterglow. The we descended while it was still just about light to the Kranzhorn Schutzhütte, and from here we descended the longer way down the easy track, which was definitely faster in. Read the full article…
Not wanting to get up early to head to the mountains after Oktoberfest the evening before, we decided to head out for a sunset hike up the Rotwand. As we set off from the car park the weather was looking pretty ominous and we were certainly not optimistic for the sunset conditions. As we made our ascent the conditions started to improve and we enjoyed wonderful views with the landscape intermixed between sun and shade which created a lovely contrast. As we made good time on the walk we decided to head to the Rotwandhaus for a pre-sunset dinner, which was certainly better than the sandwiches that we had packed. As sunset approached we headed up to the Rotwand from the Rotwandhaus, and by this point most of the clouds had vanished which meant that we had excellent views in every direction. The highlights were the view towards the Großglockner, in the soft golden hour light with the rising moon above it and the view directly towards the setting sun over the Bavarian Alps. As there were no clouds left after sunset to catch the afterglow, we headed off early. Read the full article…