Wetterstein | Fotoeins Fotografie

Posts tagged ‘Wetterstein’

24T72 Zugspitze, from 3 viewpoints in the arena

E71

Today, I‘m in the midst of Wetterstein mountains in the Northern Limestone Alps to gain new and different perspectives on the tall limestone massif that is the highest mountain in Germany. Here at the border region, it’s easy to get around by train between Germany’s Garmisch-Partenkirchen and Austria’s Lermoos.

🇩🇪 Eibsee lake, 973 metres above sea level.
🇦🇹 Grubighütte, 2050 metres above sea level.
🇦🇹 Lermoos’ Loisachweg, 1000 metres above sea level.

Eibsee

*730am, quiet and chill on the lake; Zugspitze at centre-righ*t.

Grubighütte

*View of Zugspitze massif from the Grubig II mountain station, next to the Grubig lodge.*

*Thunderhead forming over Zugspitze; next set of photos below are from the area of light green in the valley floor below (between Lermoos and Ehrwald).*

Loisachweg

*The view from Lermoos: Alps formed by the northerly drift by continental Africa into continental Europe.*

*Lermooser Moos (Lermoos Marsh): river marsh plains here and graded gravel roads are ideal for hiking and biking*.

*The grey-white chalky rock that is limestone means that the rock seen elevated today was once sitting at the bottom of an ancient ocean.*

I surpassed 700 km of total walking distance on travel day 72. I made all photos above with an iPhone15 on 18 Jul 2024. This post composed with Jetpack for iOS appears on Fotoeins Fotografie at fotoeins DOT com.

24T71 The humble gorge of the Partnach

(E70)

I’ve been here in town a half-dozen times since 2002, but I’d never wandered into the cool misty roaring depths of the Partnach river gorge, known also as the Partnachklamm. That all changed today.

Erosion starts slow in a trickle. But flowing water is patient, and begins to wear a small narrow groove into “impenetrable” rock. Ten thousand years later, the groove is a mighty gorge, about 1 kilometre (0.6 mile) long with walls as deep/high as 85 metres (280 feet).

*The* *drama of light and shadow, splashes of colour, depth, height.*

A massive roar.

There’s city bus service from Garmisch-Partenkirchen train station to the Olympic ski-jump stadium, but the one-way walk is about 5 km from the train station to the far-end (south) gate of the gorge. To enter the gorge proper, the admittance charge is 10€ (2024). Conditions “inside” can be dark, wet, and much cooler.

I made all photos above with an iPhone15 on 17 Jul 2024. This post composed with Jetpack for iOS appears on Fotoeins Fotografie at fotoeins DOT com.

24T70 From Vienna to Garmisch-Partenkirchen

(E69 V36)

Travel day 70, Euro day 69, and Vienna day 36. Morning wake-up in Vienna’s 6., and I’m sleeping tonight among the Wetterstein mountains.

Euro24 in Germany is done and dusted, although I didn’t watch any of the matches because I’d already spent time and energy on the ICC T20 World Cup and that extraordinary up-and-down final between India and South Africa. Time to head back into Germany for the third and final leg: but first, the mountains.

*Inside the main (west) entrance, 1211pm.*

*After departing Salzburg, the train crosses the Saalach river near Freilassing; also, crossing the international border east-to-west, from Austria (left) into Germany (right).*

*6.5 hours after leaving Vienna, the familiar Waxenstein, Riffelspitze, and Zugspitze peaks come into view (at left), as I arrive finally in Garmisch-Partenkirchen.*

*Another familiar sight after previous stays: facing north to Kramerspitz (left).*

I made all photos above with an iPhone15 on 16 Jul 2024. This post composed with Jetpack for iOS appears on Fotoeins Fotografie at fotoeins DOT com.

My GaPa: the Wank (vistas) over Werdenfelser Land

Before the reader goes on a titter, the German word “Wank” is likely related to old-Bavarian or Bairisch Wang/Weng, meaning “meadow on a slope” or “an opening in the forest”. The modern definition of the German verb “wanken” is “to stumble” or “to stagger.”

I’ve previously described southern Bavaria’s Garmisch-Partenkirchen (GaPa) and the natural beauty on offer around town. I’ve also made the ascent to Zugspitze a couple of times, particularly in glorious winter conditions. The return journey between Garmisch-Partenkirchen and Zugspitze isn’t cheap, but I was very glad to see the Alps in 5 different countries; the interested visitor should check the summit webcams for weather conditions before heading up.

If you want a cheaper alternative, there are mountain views to be had at Wank, an 1800-metre tall “hill” just north of Garmisch-Partenkirchen. Here are some equally beautiful views from the Wank summit on a visit during a warm afternoon in late-May.

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My Tirol: Scharnitz and Porta Claudia

Where: Scharnitz, at the northern edge of Austria’s Tirol, next to the Austro-German frontier.
What: Porta Claudia, mid 17th-century fortifications directed by and named after Claudia de’ Medici.
BTW: Scharnitz Pass is technically not a mountain pass.

I’m interested in geography, historical relics, and the topography of European borders.

Scharnitz Pass is one of the lowest crossing points over the Alps at an elevation of only 955 metres (3130 feet) with the Wetterstein mountains on one side to the west and the Karwendel mountains to the other side in the east. The pass might better be described as a “gorge”, given how the Isar river traverses the valley floor between the two sets of mountains. Naturally, a road at this location would’ve been ideal as a vital north-south route for trade and communication, which is why the Romans built the stone road, Via Raetia, through the river valley. A 200-metre section of this old Roman road remains in the woods outside the nearby town of Klais. The location of the pass/gorge is also why the Romans built a guard station “Mansio Scarbia” here to control traffic between the northern outer provinces and the rest of the inner empire to the south.

One of the earliest records from the 8th-century AD/CE documents the establishment of Scaraza Monastery, known also as Scarantia^#. The name evolved to “Scaraz”, “Scarbia”, “Scarnize”, and eventually “Scharnitz”. Today, between 1300 and 1400 people live in the Austrian town of Scharnitz in the Tirolean region of Seefeld. The town lies on the road between Innsbruck and Munich and next to the international border between Austria and Germany; the strategic importance of this modest town has never gone away.

“Porta Claudia” is the name of former fortifications on high ground at a narrow curve over the Isar river valley. In the midst of the pan-European Thirty Years War, Claudia de’ Medici, the Regent of Austrian Tirol, ordered in 1632 the construction of a strategic defensive rampart at the Tirol-Bavaria border to protect Tirol’s northern border from invasion by Swedish forces. The Bavarians overran the rampart in 1706, but fortifications were expanded in 1766. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe wrote about passing through Scharnitz in 1786 on his journey into Italy. In 1805, Napolean’s army laid siege and destroyed the fortifications, freeing the path for joint French-Bavarian armed forces to enter Austria. Remnants of the retaining wall up to six metres in height and an archway through the wall are visible today.

I’m up and about at dawn, and within 50 minutes on an S-Bahn Tirol S5^* train from Innsbruck, I’m about to satisfy my curiosity about this stretch of the Tirolean landscape in Scharnitz. With the existing Schengen treaty among participating European nations, anyone can walk, bike, or drive freely across the unguarded international border between Austria and Germany^%.

^# “Scar” (noun), 2nd etymological meaning.
^% I entered the European Union at Frankfurt am Main international airport where I went through passport check and control.
^* S5 in May 2018; renumbered as S6 as of Oct 2020.

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