Droning into Laubeneck

David from my Brauneck (1555 m) Bonfire Celebration messaged me saying he borrowed a drone and wanted to get some cool shots in the allowed zones. After looking at my to-do list of peaks and the zoning map, we settled on the Laubeneck (1758 m) peak, close to the Teufelstättkopf (1758 m) loop that I recently did with Bohdan.

The start of the hike was really not that great. When I went to Große Klammspitze (1924 m), I took the train to Garmisch and switched to a bus straight to Linderhof. This time, we travelled to Füssen, changed to Reutte in Austria (paying 6.30 Euro for a bus ticket), changed again to Linderhof. For every change we waited an hour. Still, eventually we reached the Linderhof castle and started our hike.

This route starts off light, with a normal dirt road leading to Brunnenkopfhütte. Shortly before the hut, we made a sharp turn east and took the trail towards Unterammergau, reconnecting with my older hike to retrieve a lost hiking stick near August-Schuster-Haus.

The first peak along the way, Dreisäuler Kopf (1545 m), is basically unreachable on foot without climbing. The trail goes far below the summit, requiring you to go straight uphill on slippery grass growing on dusty soil. There is no cross and no view on the top to reward you too, so we decided to just skip the challenge and keep going.

The next target, Hennen-Kopf (1796 m), is also tough to reach, but at least there's a trail leading to a cross. It's hard to find it though, because the signs showing the route are quite well hidden. Regardless, we enjoyed the view towards Linderhof and Zugspitze (2962 m) for a bit and kept walking up. We even walked past some other hikers going from Ammergau towards Linderhof (although seemingly skipping the peaks).

The Hennen-Kopf (1796 m) summit itself is quite cool. It's a multi-rock formation with trails or climbing routes going up each one. We went up the biggest one, greeted by a nice cross at the very top. Although we were already a bit pressed for time due to the commute, we stayed there to take some photos and such, since we wanted the journey up to pay off.

After going back onto the main trail, we kept going towards Laubeneck (1520 m). It's another tricky summit to easily miss, since the trail going there is quite narrow and covered in spruce bushes. At this point, the team started worrying about the arrival time and the hike duration, but we were already far from both ends of the hike, meaning they had no choice but to keep going.

This peak itself is also quite nice, although noticeably lower than the last one. I remember seeing it from Sonnenberg (1622 m) and wondering how to even get there. Turns out, the other side of the mountain is much more shallow and walkable (in summer), so going up and down isn't much of an issue.

The view from the top isn't much different from the Teufelstättkopf (1758 m) panorama, but it was a nice addition to my collection. Around this point the sun hid behind the clouds, the wind picked up, and the temperature dropped to roughly 14 degrees, making us put on our jackets. On the upside, the Höllental side of Zugspitze (2962 m) revealed itself from behind the clouds and we could enjoy the ridge in full glory.

From here onwards, the interesting part of the hike was done, and we started walking down towards Unterammergau. We passed the saddle near Latschenkopf (1634 m) quite quickly, with the team complaining about additional elevation gain on the way. At August-Schuster-Haus (Pürschlinghaus) we were blocked by some cows, but they stepped off the road when they saw us coming.

Since then, we just walked on the gravel/asphalt/dirt road down all the way to the town. Around the parking lot exiting the slope, we called a local pizza place and ordered food we could enjoy while waiting for an SEV bus to Murnau.

All in all, it's an interesting route between a nice castle and a cozy town, but the commute almost makes it not worth the effort. The views between Sonnenberg (1622 m), Latschenkopf (1634 m), Laubeneck (1520 m), and Hennen-Kopf (1796 m) are largely the same and show you the valley leading towards Zugspitze (2962 m). I would say the Teufelstättkopf (1758 m) loop is the more appealing choice if you want to repeat the route. For me personally it was a memorable event due to the drone shots we made, but as a plain walk it's not as exciting.