Mountain Finale

[selenak]

Before I leave the Alpine area in favour of Bamberg, one last pic spam from hiking through the mountains:





Pretty close to the Austrian border is the Schildenstein. The top of the Schildenstein may look harmless:





But you get a magnificent panorama up there.

The Bavarian side:



The Austrian side, with the Achensee in the far distance:



And the Wolfsschlucht ("valley of the wolf"). This is where I made the mistake of descending. They give you fair warning, it's a black path, you're required to be unafraid of heights and sure of step, etc., but I thought, hey, I'm all that. And then it turned out I was clinging for the life of me to ropes of steel with no other safety and two walking sticks in the way which I could not telescope. Doooooooowwwwwn, for hours. Phew.



Now here's an excerpt of the path downwards. Spot the steel rope!




Supposedly, the most beautiful of all the huts in this area is the Tegernseer Hütte, located on the top of a double mountain, the Ross- und Buchstein. ("Horse- and Bookstone.")

Here's the top of the mountain in question from a distance:



And how it looks after you've climbed for two hours, with another half hour to go:





After which you may be drenched in sweat, but it was totally worth it, for behold:










And this is the view you get of the Mangfall mountains:







Incidentally, the other huts for hikers to rest and be fed aren't anything to sneeze at, aesthetically speaking, either. This, for example, is the Buchsteinhütte:



And the Schwarztennenhütte:



If you aren't up to mountain climbing, you can stroll around the Tegernsee just the same and have a great panorama at the ground level:



In case you didn't recognize him, that's Ludwig II., aka Mad King Ludwig for American tourists, he who was into castle building and Wagner and ended up committing suicide in a lake. Not this one, though. (He drowned in the Starnberger See.)



The town where I'm staying, viewed from the other side of the lake:





On Friday, we had the annual Lake Festival there. This was the very day where the heatwave finally ended, but luckily the rain waited until the fireworks were over. So we had dark clouds but still some sunshine. The guys with whips are called Goaßlschnalzer:



Then there was the fishermen tournament.



Where the fishermen in question display their parts. I mean:




And then this happens:






End of contest:



Followed by magical fireworks:










Now a more fitting finale for one's Alpine summer cannot be wished for. Off to Bamberg I go!

Comments

[laurashapiro]

Wow, gorgeous. Thank you so much for sharing these!

[selenak]

You're very welcome!

[frayadjacent]

Stunning photos. I can't believe there's a hut up there! So cool.

[selenak]

I can't imagine what it must be like to work there - presumably they stay over night during the summer as opposed to making the ascend and descend every day....