Buried in Snow at Kampen

This adventure started off slow and sad. The whole sky was covered in clouds and the weather forecast promised rain and snow for the entire day, even a snowstorm in some places. When I and Bohdan boarded the bus to the ravine, there were 4 passengers in total, all getting off at the same stop.

We wished good luck upon the other hikers and started our journey. A big part of this route goes along a forest road, making it fairly easy to traverse in any season. We even met a guy walking a fluffy dog in the opposite direction.

I desperately tried to see any of the surrounding mountains, but the visibility was so bad I could only see 20-30 meters in front of me. Could be worse, I guess.

Around the midway we came across Schwarzentennalm, the local huts with some people inside. Probably they were the reason for the road being cleared of snow. Unfortunately, soon after the huts we made a sharp turn and from that point onwards we had to drag our feet through the fresh fluffy snow at the end of March.

At first, the level of snow was reasonable, and we could see Skitour tracks in the snow. We assumed they led to a nearby peak or at least a hill on the way, so we chose to follow them as much as we could.

We saw a lot of cool things: some bridges over mountain streams, cattle fences, and more huts in the distance. As the elevation grew and the path became steeper, the snow grew deeper, and it got harder to traverse. The whole time I was walking behind Bohdan, so at least I didn't have to be the first one digging the snow with every step.

Eventually, we crossed a ridge and got to higher elevation huts, Rauhalmhütte, near the bottom of Seekarkreuz (1601 m), that I visited plenty of times before.

Since the huts are in a basin surrounded by a ridge, the visibility was enough to see the other side of it, so I can even claim I saw some nice views.

We deviated a bit from the planned route and took a shortcut directly up the mountain, skipping the huts. I didn't look too close at the map beforehand, so I didn't even realize we were a few dozen meters away from Seekarkreuz (1601 m). When we looked back at the huts, we saw a person following our footsteps. In retrospect, they were probably going to the nearest peak and then down to Lenggries, while we planned a much more challenging route.

We walked onto the ridge going to Brandkopf (1569 m) and started the real climb. Thankfully, the elevation gain was not that big, so we could ascend reasonably fast. The snow was getting deeper, but with Bohdan in the front, it was still manageable. We walked past a curious dry tree, which looked like it came from a fantasy novel, and continued to the top.

Once we reached Brandkopf (1569 m), we took a quick break for some photos, then continued onwards. The snowstorm calmed down, now being replaced with a mist and some light snowfall. With the situation at hand, we didn't stay to see the potential views, instead opted to go forward.

We had no idea where the trail down to the saddle was, so Bohdan was just experimenting with the descent, and I was following his path. As we reached the saddle, we started going up, and passed a warning sign saying the next section is for experienced hikers only.

I've slightly underestimated the amount of experience one needs. The ascent quickly turned into a climb up the rocks. While it's probably fine in dry summer weather, in winter with a deep level of snow it's a different story. At any point you can miss an edge of a rock, step on some loose ground, or slip on one of the metal poles invisible under the layers upon layers of snowfall. Either mishap leads to you slipping down, and the route is so steep that slipping should not be seen as an accident you can walk away from without any damage.

Bohdan was much more confident and moved forward with grace, while I had a different experience. After my fall from Sonnenberg (1622 m) and the subsequent retrieval of a lost hiking stick, I have been a bit more cautious on the trails, and this one was no exception. I was trying to be careful with every step, but the snow was so deep that I couldn't see any of the rocks or poles, and I had to trust my feet to find the right path. It was a nerve-wracking experience, and I was constantly on edge, afraid of slipping and falling down the mountain.

Bohdan was very understanding, waiting for me while laughing and filming me from above, all in good fun. Eventually I overcame my fear and climbed to the top, where the Spitzkamp (1604 m) peak was waiting with proverbial open arms.

We stayed for a bit to look around and panic took over me again. There was nowhere to go! South-west was the way we came from, and I had the feeling I wouldn't be able to climb down the path I took. North-west and south-east was the drop-off of the cliff. That obviously wasn't an option either. The only choice was to go forward, but the path looked very narrow and sketchy, with most of the snow around barely staying on top of buried bushes and trees.

I was quite nervous walking on the thin cliffside covered in knee-deep snow, but thankfully this section finally ended after around 200 meters. What followed was a path on the safer side, although still covered in deep snow. Hiking in winter is in general a different challenge from the usual tracks. Wherever you go, you have to lift the legs high up to get out of snow, usually having to push the legs up with force to get them out of more solid layers. Thus, you use not only the usual walking/hiking muscles, but also some others that might not be as well-trained.

As we continued, we walked past a small hill on the cliffside covered in bushes. It was clear that was supposed to be Auerkamp (1607 m), but there was no cross or register to be found, and it wasn't a smart idea to fight the bushes to climb there, so we kept going.

There was an extra cross further ahead at the memorial plaque, which I took a photo at to count as the previous peak. The way at this point got quite wide, and we had multiple options when walking around trees and piles of snow.

We kept going for a bit more and got to the final peak of the ridge, Ochsenkamp (1594 m). Although we were happy to complete the climbing part of the hike, we were a bit confused with the road leading to it, since we didn't see a trail branching off from the route we took to go down the mountain.

Regardless, we stayed there a bit to take photos, I took a break to catch my breath and enjoy the would-be views of Hirschberg (1670 m), another great medium-difficulty peak I visited in the past.

We found the rough location of the trail, took some wrong turns, and ended up on a steep slope going straight down the mountain. Since it became clear I gave us wrong directions (trying out the map feature of Garmin Fenix 8), Bohdan went straight across the trees and bushes onto the correct trail, and I spent several minutes trying to cross over to him too.

The descent was quite steep all the way until the Heinz Ebenbeck memorial, situated on a big rock on the way down. The man died in an avalanche in 1987, and this plaque served us as a good reminder to be careful on our trips.

After the memorial, we quickly reached the treeline of a mixed forest, and I got another exciting hillside walk down through the forest itself. It was a nice change of pace to be able to comfortably descend without being careful with every step like higher up in the mountains.

At last, Bohdan reached Hirschtalsattel (1227 m). I, on the other hand, was way behind, to the point he thought I got lost. Thankfully, I emerged from the forest soon after, and we started going down a wide gravel road.

To our detriment, the road was covered in deep snow too, but there was a pair of footsteps of a person trying to climb up one of the surrounding mountains and giving up immediately. We used the holes in the snow that the person made, which sped up our travel back by a lot.

As we kept getting closer to Lenggries, the snow was also getting more shallow, so we managed to maintain a decent pace and aim for an earlier train. As we were walking through the forest, I kept getting a weird feeling that I've been there before. I checked the map and saw that we were approaching the trail that branches off to Seekarkreuz (1601 m).

We were still some distance away from it, making me even more confused. Turns out, I took the same road on my hike to Fockenstein (1564 m) with Maksym. Although I haven't been on this trail for years, the memories of it hidden deep within started coming to the surface. I didn't have much time to dwell on it though, as we had to hurry towards the train station.

A few waterfalls and huts later, we finally got out of the forest and onto the fields and meadows of Lenggries. Schloss Hohenburg came and went, and we were already in the town. I made a bet with Bohdan on how many hikers we'll come across on the hike, saying 12 (14 including the ones taking the bus). It fell through, since we only saw 4. Anyway, we quickly reached the station and went home.

All in all, I am sure this hike offers nice views and challenging paths at a better time of the year, but right now it wasn't that exciting. Zero visibility, freezing wind, knee-deep snow, and steep cliffs make this hike a bad idea at this time of the year.