Annual Visit to Nebelhorn
As Pavlo, who joined me for the Italian and Austrian hikes, came to visit me in Munich, I proposed a few possible destinations with picturesque views and complex routes. They included Ehrwald to Knörrhütte, Karwendel, Jenner, Klammspitze, and Nebelhorn. He decided to go with the last option.
We woke up at 4:00 on the day of the hike to a surprise! S1 was under repairs, and we had to take an extra subway ride to get to the main station. The usual trains to Oberstdorf were also not working, so we ended up spending 4.5 hours to get to the town.
We eventually got there, bought some souvenirs, and set off towards Seealpsee. A big portion of the trail is a largely flat asphalt road with occasional cars of locals and farm owners passing by. At the end of it, there's a beer garden and a small museum.
It was a lovely walk with occasional shade from the trees on the side of the road. I also got to remember the nearby mountains I went to, namely Riefenkopf (1749 m) and Himmelschrofen (1790 m).
The trail here splits into several directions, some leading up and others deeper in the valley. We took the path to the waterfall, climbed a small ladder, and started the ascent to the lake.
The route here gets quite difficult from the get go. First comes a slippery gravel section, then a rocky one. A few times you have to climb over waterfalls, jumping on rocks sticking out of the water.
This section of the trail is quite barren, covered in shrubs and short grass. The only views you get are the panorama deeper into the Alps and two mountain huts on the side of Riefenkopf (1749 m).
As we climbed higher, we started noticing some more spruce trees popping up here and there. They didn't provide any shade, but it was reassuring that a less steep section was coming up.
And that was indeed the case. At some point, we were facing more tree roots than rocks on the way, dashing through the open spots to get to the shade along the trail faster.
Soon after, the trees subsided and pine bushes started popping up. We climbed through a few of them, over some others, across a few more, and got to the trail overseeing the lake.
After a brief discussion, we headed down to the water surface and enjoyed the refreshing moist wind near the lake to cool ourselves down from the road so far. The beach was crowded with tons of tourists, most of them coming from the top after taking the cable car up.
We stayed a bit longer there, dipping our feet in the water. Soon, something unusual started happening. The fish in the lake approached me instead of swimming away, and they even started biting me!
It tickled at first, and I didn't feel any harm. Still, they started biting harder and harder, making it more and more painful. At last, I gave up and took my feet out of the water. Meanwhile, some butterflies sat on me and weren't even trying to get off.
We had some drinks and food and headed up. Id say the route up to the lake is the most challenging and demanding part of the hike, and the trail onwards gets better. It's not as steep and the road itself is wider.
We kept going for a while, walking alongside some tourist groups having snowball fights on the trail. I even posed as a local guide, showing some older hikers the way to the lake and down the mountain.
When we got to the saddle leading to the second to last station, Pavlo started feeling bad. We took another break, thought about it, and decided to take the cable car instead. Once we got over the hurdle of paying the elderly lady at the ticket register, we took the tickets and headed up to the summit of Nebelhorn (2224 m).
There were tons of tourists there, a lady with an eagle on a leash, several Alpine Choughts that I fed with some crumbs, and a few larger groups of hikers enjoying the views. Not that we weren't in a hurry, we explored the surroundings a bit, got some food and drinks, and enjoyed the rest. We came down by cable car too.
If you ever decide to visit there, which I would highly recommend, I would take the cable car up and either go down to the lake, or explore the neighboring peaks and ridges. Nebelhorn (2224 m) has a lot to offer but somehow the station itself wasn't as interesting as the rest.