Sunday 16th June: Weather: 15°C to 17°C: Overcast but no rain: cool all day
Scharnitz to Mittenwald: 13k: 9am to 1pm: 4hrs via Leutasch Klamm (Gorge)
Accommodation: Ferienhaus Antonio: Address: In der Wasserwiese 14/Partenkirchen Strass 32 Mittenwald
Ian ready to leave Helga’s Gasthaus
A wonderful day playing tourist, with an easy 13k walk via the Leutaschklamm (Leutasch Gorge), a spectacular gorge with a man built steel walkway around 750m. Hundreds of day walkers are here today, Sunday. This in itself was a highlight but there were two more surprisingly special highlights. First, arriving in the beautiful village of Mittenwald and walking around the old town with it’s painted houses. Then arriving at our home for the hight, a last minute booking.com find yesterday, to discover that this place is a 4 roomed apartment, complete with kitchen, and a view of the surrounding mountains. And to top of a great day, we were met at the end of the street by the owners whoc have converted part of their house into 2 x apartments. We needed a relaxing day after 4 days in the Karwendel Mountains.
Porta Claudia gateway to Scharnitz
Cows in meadow Mittenwald
Leutaschklamm Gorge info
Morning tea half way Leutasch track
Clearly a Ladies spot
Entrance to steel walkway Leutasch
Amazing Leutasch gorge walkway
On the German/Austrian border
Are retreating glaciers new???
Mittenwald R.C. Peter & Paul church
Snow on Alps backdrop
Lunch at the church Mittenwald
Wonderful view from our window
Essentials - Mayonnaise, wine, beer
Our day starts at 6am with a cup of tea, boiled from the jug in our apartment. The first jug we’ve seen on our walk. Time to call the family back home and talk to the kids and their families - Bonnie in Brisbane, Tom in Sydney and Will in New Zealand. We clean up, I like to leave a place cleaner than when we came, then down to breakfast of the usual meats, cheeses, muesli, yoghurt and fresh breads with jam. All lovely except the coffee’s cold and bitter. Oh well, I’d score this place 9.9 out of 10, pretty good despite the coffee.
It’s 9am when we leave. It's cool and overcast as we head off to the local petrol station withe the attached Mpreis supermarket to buy some cheese, mayonnaise, yoghurt and muesli for the next 3 days as we are in places with no breakfast. It’s 9.30 when we leave Scharnitz, via Porta Claudia, a former fortification at the Scharnitz Pass, where the valley of the River Isar narrows on the Bavarian border with Austria. There’s dozens of hikers and bikers on the flat path running beside the Isar River.
After an hour’s walking we cross the border from Austria to Germany and soon we’re at the turnoff uphill to the Leutaschklamm. This deep gorge had been inaccessible to the public until 2006 when an EU funded project created a structure of steel walkways, stairways and bridges to form a 970m path. We’ve seen gorges on this walk before, but this was claimed to be a must-see and besides, today was our be-a-tourist day.
About 30 minutes after hiking up hill, we reach the start of the circuit through the gorge and join the throng of tourists coming up from the car parks below. The circuit was created as a family friendly tourist attraction with stopping points explaining the mystery of the spirits of the gorge. The first part is an easy 1.5k on graded forrest paths and at 11.30am we see a seat where we stop for a Jetboiled coffee, much to the amusement of the passing tourists, mostly young couples with kids and older family members out for a Sunday stroll. A visit to the ladies tree revealed I wasn’t the first there!!
A bit further on, the forest trail joins the steel walk way which runs for 970 metres around the gorge, high above the torrential Leutascher Ache (River). It is truly an amazing feat of engineering, and not obvious how the overhanging walkway is bolted to the rock sides. It made me nervous watching parents carry toddlers loosely sitting in back packs perched precariously above the railing level.
It was a fascination walk, and totally different from the Kaiserklamm gorge we’d seen a week ago near Kaiserhaus, which was man made more than a hundred years ago by loggers using only hand tools. One of the more memorable info spots explained how the glaciers of today are at the same level as they were 2000 years ago. There’s no doubt we have climate change but makes you wonder why!!
Once out of the gorge, it was a down hill walk to a flat path into Mittenwald. So many tourists are enjoying Sunday lunch al fresco style in the Obermarkt old town street. The supermarkets are closed but we have some of yesterday’s old bread and this morning’s cheese from the petrol station for lunch and sit on the seat outside the pink coloured Roman Catholic church of Saints Peter and Paul. This church and many of the surrounding buildings, both businesses and private residences, are beautifully decorated with elaborate paintings on the exterior walls. Such a pretty village.
While we’re having lunch we spy a take-away just opposite selling hot sausages, chickens and slabs of pork. AND, there’s a drink dispenser with cold bottles of beer. I check that our apartment tonight has a fridge for the beer and microwave to reheat the meat. And it does. We leave with a bag of 2 sausages, 2 slabs of pork plus 3 bottles of cold beer. Then follow Ian’s Koomoot map on his phone to our booking.com home at In der Wasserweise 14. Finding the street was easy, just across the train line. But the house wasn’t obvious but just as I get out my computer to check the address, the owners of our apartment are at the end of the street waving to us. How nice. They take us upstairs, and the apartment is absolutely amazing. I’m already giving it 11 out of 10 on booking.com. It’s been converted from their upstairs rooms into a kitchen, bathroom, large bedroom and lounge room plus an outdoor eating area on a balcony with views to the mountains. 77 euro was too cheap for this place which I believe was a last minute cancellation on booking.com as it wasn’t available when I looked a few weeks ago for a place in Mittenwald.
We immediately pay as we’ll be leaving early for a longish walk to Garmisch in the morning. Then time for a hot shower but there’s not much washing to do as it was a cool non sweaty day and we washed everything we owned yesterday. A very relaxing afternoon sorting our photos and checking our route to Garmisch tomorrow.
At 5pm, it’s beer o’clock with a few nuts, then dinner of lettuce and tomatoes mixed with mayonnaise with our 2 slabs of roast pork, beer and a small bottle of wine gifted by our hosts. Our 2 sausages will keep as we’re full.
A quiet night blogging and catching up on new as our phone and WiFi is good before bed at 9pm.