Zugspitze Reintal Loop in a Day

After much consideration, I and David decided to choose the Reintal route to hike up Zugspitze, the highest mountain in Germany at 2962 m. We chose the earliest train and bus connection to Garmisch Olympia-Skistadion, which marks the start of the route.

The day before, we negotiated how much food to bring, and I ended up carrying the following items for both of us:

As a little spoiler to not mention it later, the food and liquids we brought were way too much. It was more difficult to carry it all and I had to take toilet breaks at every other hut, which was quite annoying and slowed us down. Out of the variety of food we brought, the Frühstücksfleisch (canned breakfast meat) was the best, if eaten with bread or crackers, I highly recommend it. We ended up not needing or using the energy drink, and I still have it unopened as of August.

In the morning, David brought extra food and drinks to eat on the way, since the travel time to Garmisch was quite long. I woke up at 3:45 AM, got onto S-Bahn to München Hauptbahnhof at 4:41 AM. Surprisingly, I got my Deutschlandticket checked on S-Bahn at 5:04 AM. We started hiking at 7:30 AM, making breaks roughly every hour.

First, we came to Partnachklamm shortly before 8:00 AM and waited for it to open. There was a crowd of around 10 hikers waiting, who walked along with us most of the way to the top.

We continued along the route, passing by some slower hikers and eventually reached Bockhütte. At this point, mountain bikers began to pass us quite often, making us stay alert and step aside frequently.

At this point the weather became quite hot, so we put on sunscreen and took another break. Just as the previous sections, the following part between Bockhütte (1052 m) and Reintalangerhütte (1366 m) is mostly flat, with a few light uphill sections.

After Reintalangerhütte (1366 m) there's a small bridge with a SUP tied to it, that apparently hangs there the whole year, because I've seen tons of photos with it on Google Maps and other websites. We reached the bridge at around 11:20 AM.

Shortly after the bridge, the route becomes significantly steeper, and the actual climb towards Knorrhütte (2052 m) begins. Most people started taking breaks more often on this section, so everyone got together and started ascending in one big group.

We kept going, and reached Knorrhütte (2052 m) at around 1:00 PM. At the hut, we wanted to order a drink and eat one of our snacks, but the waiter prohibited us from eating our own food (dick move). Thus, we quickly finished the drinks and left the hut to eat in front of it, outside the premises.

From the hut, you can clearly see the Gatterl (2024 m) mountain pass, which is part of the Ehrwald route to Zugspitze (2962 m). It's slightly shorter, but more annoying to get to if you live in München.

As we continued our way to the Zugspitzplatt station, the road up slowly deteriorated, revealing more and more rocks, gravel, and snow. At no point did I feel the need for crampons or winter shoes, but it is possible to get your feet wet or stuck in the snow. We reached the station at around 3:40 PM.

The next section from the Zugspitzplatt station (2943.75 m) (huh?) to Zugspitze (2962 m) summit is the most difficult by far. The road is steep and completely covered in gravel and rocks for half of the way, and the other half is a moderately steep via ferrata, although it is very nicely secured and well-maintained.

The gravel section really took all of my strength, as for every two steps you take upwards, you slide back one step down. The via ferrata section is not that difficult, but since it comes directly after the gravel section, and it's already late, it can be quite exhausting to push through to the station.

We reached the summit at around 4:50 PM, and were faced with a choice: either take the last cable car down from the station or go to the cross at the peak and walk down Reintal. We chose the latter, since we wanted at least some proof of us being at the top. We took a few minutes to rest and went to the door leading to the last via ferrata to the peak. Turns out, the door was locked, although there were a few people still enjoying the view at the top. I went to one of the employees and asked if we could go through, which he denied. I asked what the people at the top were supposed to do, and he said that it's not his problem.

Thankfully, the door and passage at the station open from the other side, so the people at the top came down and held the door for us. We climbed up and reached the cross at around 5:30 PM.

Although we were constantly on the lookout for the employees scaring us off, they never did. We took a bunch of photos, but the clouds were quite low, so the view was not as good as it could have been.

We ate some Käsespätzle at the station Bistro, which was still open due to the celebration of Bergfeuer zur Sommersonnenwende (lighting a fire on the day of longest sunlight). At that point there was no way down besides walking, so we started the descent.

The descent was quite long, and at around 8:40 PM, still on the way to Knorrhütte (2052 m), we saw a rescue helicopter flying around, trying to pick up a mountain climber who fell down from Jubiläumsgrat (appr. 2740 m) and caught him-/herself on a ledge. The helicopter had to let the rescuer down on a rope uphill from the climber, who then climbed down, secured the victim, and brought him/her up to the helicopter. In the meantime, while the rescuer was climbing down, the helicopter had to circle around and survey the area, flying really low to the ground, giving us a great view of the event. After the victim was rescued, the helicopter made another round to pick up the rescuer, and flew away. We were quite lucky to witness this event, where everyone was safe and sound in the end.

We got down to Knorrhütte (2052 m) at around 10:00 PM, mostly because we spent 2 hours looking at the helicopter rescue. We took a short toilet break, and continued.

As we put on our headlamps, the night came, and we continued our way down in the dark, surrounded by flies and mosquitoes. We had to switch to the red LED of the headlamps to avoid attracting them, so everything around us turned a dark red, while the sky became deep blue and cyan. Since there was no light pollution, we could see the whole Milky Way, which was a great sight.

We also came across fireflies (less than ten million), frogs/toads, mountain mice, a mountain goat, and tons of different insects. The way down took longer than expected because of the darkness, and we reached Reintalangerhütte (1366 m) at around 0:15 AM.

The rest of the way was surprisingly challenging. We were already tired, so we felt every rock and piece of gravel under our feet. Because of the darkness, we couldn't tell our position and speed, and not wanting to disappoint ourselves, we kept going blindly, thinking that we're almost there. The temperature also quickly dropped, especially along the Partnach stream, with wind bringing cold moist air from the stream up to us. We tried taking a break to eat, but the cold made us immediately continue. We also met some runners wearing headlamps, who were running up to Reintalangerhütte (1366 m) and back down, which was quite impressive.

We kept going slower and slower, and at around 4:00 AM we reached Partnachklamm. The gorge was closed, so we had to take a detour around it, slowing us down even more. On the detour, David's feet started hurting even more, and I slipped on wet wood on some steps and fell down, so we slowed down to a crawl. We kept going, walking past new hikers who were just starting their way up, and finally reached the bus stop at the ski slope at around 6:30 AM. We were completely exhausted, so we fell asleep on the train back to München.

All in all, this was an amazing experience, although the road back from Knorrhütte (2052 m) felt like filler content nightmare. While the route up is great and not too difficult, the way down to Knorrhütte (2052 m) with the evening views is great, the rest of the way to Garmisch is just pure suffering, not worth the effort.

I wouldn't repeat this route the way we did it the first time. With better resource management it's completely possible to reach the top before the last cable car leaves, which I'd do if some other group suggests going up Reintal. Another option would be to go down a different route, e.g. the via ferrata to Eibsee. It's also possible to do a big section of the route with a bike rented in Garmisch, that cuts down on hiking time by about 2-3 hours in each direction. Lastly, the huts along the way usually have a few overnight places left and cost only 30 Euro per person, which is a great option if you're pressed for time and don't want to walk overnight.