Thursdat 20th June: Weather: 10°C to 20°C to 12°C: Blue sunny skies and warm, thunderstorms in afternoon
Rientelanger to Lermoos: 18.4k: 6hrs: 7am to 1pm: 2 x 30 min breaks: Then Train/Taxi Garmisch to Lermoos
Accommodation: Happy Camp Hoffherr 21 Garmische Strass Lermoos
Cold 10°C leaving Rientelanger 7am
Collecting snow in coke bottles
Pretty as a picture the 2nd time
Breakfast at Brock Hut 9am
Hot coffee with breakfast
Raging Parnach River
View from opposite side of gorge
Morning tea near Parnach Alm
Hay barns (Heuschober) Garmisch
Taxi to Lermoos with Deutsche Bahn
Happy Camp Hoffherr creativity
Thunderstorms on Zugspitze
Movie of thunderstorms 3pm
Window View Zugspitze after storm
A wonderful and "interesting" day. From Rientelanger Hutte we followed the valley down the same track as yesterday, but the scenery was so different looking down instead of up. Half way down we turned off to skirt a ridge and come into Garmische a different way, past 100 year old hay barns (heuschober) scattered in the meadows. We arrived in Garmische to find the shops closed, no one working on construction sites and we thought some important politician had died. We later learn it’s Corpus Christi - 60 days after Easter Sunday - a public holiday in Catholic parts of Germany. We aim for the 1.21pm train to Lermoos, 23k away, but the train arrives on a different platform to what we were told. So DB (Deutsche Bahn - German Trains) paid for our taxi to Lermoos!! How good was that!
We’re awake early at 5.30am - no bed bugs, despite feeling itchy for no reason other than thinking there were - and duly microwave sleeping sheets and pyjamas just in case. A cup of tea in our two person dorm and we’re packed and leave at 7am. It could be a long day, and we need to catch a train late in the day, so we’ll have breakfast on the track. It’s a cold 10°C when we leave under blue skies. Our first stop is the large snow drift near the hut, to fill up 3 coke bottles with snow to put in Ian’s “fridge bag”. The trip back down the same track as yesterday is just as nice. We had no thoughts of continuing higher towards the top of Zugspitze as planned as we had met so many hikers who had turned back after being told the same as us - there’s 5 metres of snow up top that shouldn’t be there this time of year. And last night we had already decided to return to Garmische and catch a train around to Lermoos.
After and hour and a half of brisk walking to keep warm, we arrive at Brock Hutte where we knew there were tables and chairs - perfect for breakfast. Others thought so too and there was quite a collection of hikers coming up and going down the valley who had the same idea. It was just such a magic place with blue skies above the mountain wall opposite us. Continuing down and down, we veer to the left on a different path, instead of going via the Partnachklamm gorge again and meet so many people coming up - hikers and bikers and kids - school must be finished earlier than July we thought.
At 11.30am, time for another cup of coffee sitting outside a hay barn (heuschober) one of many dotted all over teh country side, some more than 100 years old. The small scale family farmers still store hay in them for winter feed, with no sign of giant multi national companies in Bavaria or the Tyrol. The track down into Garmische is quite steep but it’s mostly bitumen, and is easier than loose gravel. Soon we’re following a narrow track with even more hikers heading towards us, and then we cross a large meadow scattered with dozens of hay barns, all unique in style.
Finally we reach the back of Garmische and follow a few small roads towards the Bahnhof. We’re amazed that the town is dead - no construction workers on site, shops are closed, no cars on the streets! I’m thinking some important German politician had died, remembering Madrid on 20th November 1975 when General Franco died and the whole place came to a standstill. At the train station, I do a computer check for shops that might be open, and google tells be that the local SPAR is open from 7.30am until 8pm - depending on Corpus Christi holiday. Of course. It’s Corpus Christi. The shops are shut and the kids on holidays.
We may as well go straight to Lermoos on the 1.21 train so I buy 2 Senior tickets for 7 euro each and Ian buys a beer and 2 bread rolls for lunch. The lady in the ticket office prints out a double ticket and tells me Platform 4 at 1.21, which I could already see on the electronic departures board so over to platform 4 we went. There’s no one there and at 1.20 there’s a train on platform 3 with name Lermoos on the front. It can’t be ours as the German train system is never wrong and the sign on the platform stated platform 4 Lermoos. Then the train slowly pulls out. Maybe it’s just going up a bit to reverse back to the right platform 4, but no, it keeps on going around the corner and off in the direction of Lermoos.
Returning to the ticket office I explain that we were waiting on Platform 4, as we were told, then see the train leave from Platform 3. She says, yes it always leaves from Platform 4, ah, but wait a minute it’s a holiday today and they’ve changed platforms but not the sign. She is very apologetic, and I say it’s not your fault but when’s the next train to Lermoos? She immediately calls the station master, a buxom lady with keys hanging off her belt and she grabs a piece of paper from the desk and waves to indicate for us to follow - out of the station to the taxi rank where she arranges for the first can to take us to Lermoos - all expenses paid by DB Deutsche Bahn. How good is that.
It’s 23k from Garmische to Lermoos and we were never going to walk after an 18k morning. But it was a scenic drive taking 35 minutes around the foot of the Zugspitze. The driver drops us at the Bahnhof, and we check on my computer the location of the Happy Camp Hoffherr, our home for tonight, then run/walk quickly as there’s thunder and black clouds rolling in. We’ve no sooner checked in to our fabulous Queen sized room with a balcony view over Ehrwald and the Zugspitze than it rains and rains shrouding the Zugspitze in clouds and mist.
We have a very late lunch sharing a beer with a cheese and bread roll in the warm room before having a shower and washing clothes. The storm lasts and hour, then the sun comes out revealing the Zugspitze right before our eyes. A stunning view. Time to sort photos before trotting down to the bar at 5.30 to bring 2 beers back to our room to have with our pork and vegetables left over from 2 nights ago, kept cold by the bottled snow. And to make Ian even happier, there’s cable TV with Federer playing Tsonga in the German tennis.