After a very successful alpine ski season, here is a random assortment of photos from the many days out that we had.
Assorted Alpine Skiing Photos from 2023/2024 Season
MasterPlan Mountaineering
Tiroler Scharte
We had two nights booked in the Jamtalhütte for some ski mountaineering and in the week running up to the trip, the weather could not make its mind up as to if the weekend would have excellent weather or awful, what was however certain was that the day we approached the hut would be spectacular. We set off from Munich via train in the morning and after a very smooth train journey, and a slightly less smooth bus journey which made me feel rather green, we arrived in Galtür in time for some bakery lunch prior to setting off for the hut. The skin up to the hut was beautiful, with snow from the village, a good track and wonderful scenery. It wasn’t long after we left Galtür that we started to feel like we were in the big mountains and fairly remote. After a 10km skin in we arrived at the hut, where I was certainly feeling the lack of exercise from the previous few months! We didn’t really have time to head out for a tour, and by this point the cloud had started to come in. We. Read the full article…
Kleiner Gamsstein
With Becky’s progression with skiing I felt like it was time for her to attempt her first proper ski tour. The challenge was to find a route which felt like a proper ski tour, with a wonderful view from the top, but which actually did not have too much ascent, or more to the point, off piste descent. After looking through multiple guidebooks I eventually settled on the Kleiner Gamstein, from the Hoch Fügen car park, as it was a significant viewpoint, with an approach along a piested xc route before the final ascent. It was a lovely way up with fantastic views in great snow conditions. I had expected good views, but it is safe to say that I hadn’t expected the views from the summit to be quite as good as they were. Despite the wall to wall sunshine the summit was fairly cold, so after a few photos and forcing our lunch down quickly we set off on the descent. The descent took us quite a while, as unsurprisingly Becky found her first proper off piste descent pretty difficult. Nonetheless, we were back at the car in. Read the full article…
2023 in 100 Photos
All to quickly it was once again the end of another year and time to reflect on the year. This year we really started to settle into our routine of living an hour from the Alps, with travel being much easier and having settled into Munich life, both professionally and socially. Unfortunately at the start of the year Becky had an accident and badly broke her wrist which was also misdiagnosed which delayed her recovery. This significantly impacted our year as we were unable to climb, klettersteig or ride our bikes for most of the year. The highlights of the year for me have to be Becky’s continued progression at skiing with her initial foray into ski touring, my ski mountaineering adventure on the Ruderhofspitze, my continued paragliding progression with my first flight over 100km, our wonderful holiday together to Slovenia and a beautiful walk near munich with a combination of snow&autumn colours. Winter Winter continued with lots of weekends away skiing with family, friends from the UK and friends from Munich, it seemed like we had a constant stream of visitors which as wonderful. Becky’s progression continued and she. Read the full article…
Salzburg
Salzburg has been on my list of cities near Munich to visit for a while, and while David was visiting seemed like a good opportunity. The forecast was a but mixed, with some sun, some cloud and some rain. Thankfully we were again very lucky with the weather and it was clear (ish) most of the day and most importantly it was clear when it needed to be in the blue hour. We started the day by walking from the main station, through the gardens of Schloss Mirabell before heading up to Festung Hohensalzburg. Initially it was bright sunshine which meant that the gardens of Schloss Mirabell were beautiful, did not produce any nice photos. The same cannot be said from the top of the castle, as the view into the mountains and over Salzburg was wonderful, with softened light due to the high cloud, wonderful autumnal colours and a beautiful city. After we were done in the castle, we walked up the hill on the other side of the river, which gave some absolutely stunning views. Here is somewhere I will definitely return to in the summer for a. Read the full article…
Autumnal Eibsee
With a very difficult forecast we decided to head to the Eibsee, not really knowing what to expect. When we arrived there was cloud just above the mountains which was blocking the sunlight and facilitating nice light for photography. While the cloud was there we certainly made the most of it, with a beautiful mix of autumnal trees and snowy mountains. As the day progressed the cloud thinned out and it turned into a beautiful sunny day, which was lovely for the scenery, but terrible for photos. So once the sun came out we just enjoyed the walk around the lake before heading back to make (unsuccessful) plans for sunset.
Munich U-Bahn Stations
When the weather is bad and one has a friend visiting with the purpose of photography, ideas on what to do can be somewhat challenging. We ended up deciding to go exploring some of the more interesting U-Bahn stations in Munich, as it turns out they can be quite varied and interesting, just not the ones which I normally. We ended up spending two days underground taking these photos, they end up taking a lot longer than you might expect. As finding a moment with nobody in the photos can be very challenging, and when you have to wait 10mins between trains, the photos with trains in can take a while to get right. The photos are in the order in which we visited them, which was purely logistical. It was certainly a fun way to spend a few days, and I will certainly go back for another go at some stations, perhaps in the less sociable hours of the night in an attempt to capture trains and no people. Marienplatz Oberwiesenfeld Olympia-Einkaufzentrum Westfriedhof Böhmerwaldplatz Candidplatz Josephsburg
Veitsberg
A lot had changed in the mountains since the previous weekend on Schellschlicht, as a significant amount of snow had fallen during the week. The weather forecast in the morning looked stunning, with high cloud forecast for the afternoon before more precipitation in the evening. We also needed a short day as Becky had to drive the van back to the UK the next day, so we settled on an early ascent of the Veitsberg, which had a book time of 4h15mins if the ridge on from the Veitsberg was excluded. The walk was really enjoyable from the get-go, as the autumnal colours were just stunning, and with a snow line down to only just above the car park gave us some really beautiful scenes with autumnal trees covered in plenty of snow. A rare combination thanks to a late autumn and a reasonable amount of early snowfall. Despite the snowfall we made good time, and were soon at the start of the ridge up to the summit. Here was where the day progressed from great to outstanding, as the views were just spectacular due to the clear air, green. Read the full article…