A Trip to the German Alps

We are currently in the first week of two weeks holiday and instead of sitting around all week, we decided to go hiking in the German Alps...
I had no idea what to expect, but was told that the hut that we were staying in was just below the far mountain in the picture below...

Day 1

We started off walking up the mountain, it was steeper than anything that I have walked in Australia but the packs were light so I wasn't having any trouble.

Eventually we made it to the hut and decided we would walk up to the peak above it because it was still early in the day.

You can just see the hut, to the right of the lake. And the peak is on the left of the photo.

I thought that looked challenging enough but when we got to the ridge of that peak and were presented with the view of the valley on the other side, it turned out that Jo (Jakob's father) had different ideas.

The first peak that we were going to is on the right, the one we went to is on the far left...

When I found out that he wanted to go to the furthest away peak I was a little surprised but was happy to say that if everyone else could do it than I could probably do it too.

The day was starting to warm up by then and the sky was pretty much clear. And I was a bit curious as why there was still snow in this heat. I may have imagined it to be hotter than it really was because we were walking but I am assuming that it was one of the hotter days this year in the Alps so the snow hadn't had much time to start melting.
We kept walking, and came across some of the craziest and most dangerous situations that I have been in, walking along tiny paths with one very steep slope going down on one side for hundreds of metres, walking across snow fields that were one slopes of about 50 or more degrees and walking up super steep shale rubble that slipped every time you took a step.

One of those snow fields, fun in boots meant for the desert.

When we got to the top, it had an incredible view. Unfortunately I didn't know about the panorama application that I have put most of the photos together with and took a video instead, which is a little hard to post here.
The way down was even more fun and almost easier to my surprise. We slid down the shale and two feet skied down on the snowfields which is so much fun! All round by the time we got back to the hut it had been a 7 hour hike...

Day 2











The next day we headed out again, this time to walk back down into the valley where we started but the long way around. It was a nice day again with mostly downhill walking but no lack of uphills.

Me sitting half in Austria and half in Germany.

The rest of the day went well, and it was nice to walk on some flat ground and go for a refreshing swim in the freezing lake. Then head home for barbecue, or grill as they call it.

I have to say that is one of the best weekends I have had here, enjoying the Alpine air after being sick and getting the legs working again... Can't wait to go to France and Mont Ventoux next week!