Blog Posts in Category: Winter

The weather forecast for Saturday had been fairly mixed all week, but it had remained sure that there would be very strong winds. With this in mind we had elected to do an alternative variant of this route to minimise the time we spent on the ridge. However, due to me following the wrong route we ended up doing the entire ridge, which as it turned out was a fortunate mistake as there was no wind, clear air and wall to wall sunshine. The ascent to the start of the ridge was fairly painless, and we gained a surprising amount of height fairly quickly. As we emerged from the forrest onto the ridge just below Brünstelskopf it became clear there was plenty of snow along the entire ridge and that we would need to put our crampons on. The ridge was just spectacular, with inspiring views in every direction, clear air, lots of sun, and more importantly no wind. We must have been on the ridge for quite some time as it is a reasonable distance, but it really didn’t feel like it took very long as it was so. Read the full article…

Today was a day where the weather forecast couldn’t decide between not great and brilliant, and it seemed the actual weather was a bit indesisive as well, but it certainly wasn’t the day which the forecast predicted at 6:30 am that morning. We had decided to head up to the Sylvensteinspeicher and walk up the ride towards the Demeljoch, with no particular objective in mind, just seeing how far we could get with the snowy conditions. We were expecting a clear day, the but actual weather had other ideas in mind as it was snowing as we left the car park. As we drove across the dam I was very surprised to find the dam frozen, a bit of a different scene to when I was last here in the Autumn! After a typically Bavarian ascent in the forrest, with a few fleeting views out over the frozen reservoir, we soon arrived at the start of the ridge, which meant we had wonderful views to one side. We could see plenty of bad weather, but didn’t appear to be catching much ourselves which was great. We made good time up. Read the full article…

Having returned to Munich it has been strangely warm, however winter seems to have suddenly returned. After an evening of snow, Adam and I headed out to do a circuit above Lenggries including the Schönberg and the Seekarkreuz. The morning was beautiful, with a cloudless sky, snow down to the valley and cold air. We enjoyed a gentle walk up a snowy forrest, which was much more interesting with the fresh snow. We soon got to a stunning opening, which also marked the start of the proper ascent. This was fairly straightforwards, other than the small part where we went off the path due to following tracks in front of us… We soon were at the summit, and enjoying fleeting views of the mountains, as unfortunately the cloud had come in. After some well earnt brunch we descended as the weather improved and had brilliant views towards the Hochplatte and Roßstein. There was one small section of scrambling which we were the first party along, which was fairly interesting, especially due to my route finding error. Once we approached the end of the scrambling, the views were absolutely fantastic. We. Read the full article…