Reconnecting with Nature near Oberau

After a short discussion with David from my Laubeneck (1758 m) hike, we decided to go for a chill hike with some nice views and around 800 meters of ascent. As you can see from the hike statistics, we ended up doing a bit more than that, but it ended up being enjoyable nonetheless.

We had several options for the route, including some smaller peaks near Oberau, Kochel, Unterammergau, and others. Since David took part in my DAAD FK Laber Hauptgipfel (1686 m) hike, we decided to go for the Laber subpeaks, starting with Kleiner Laber (1205 m).

The hike started in Oberau, where we walked past some alpacas on a farm and started our ascent. The initial part of the hike goes through a mixed forest, walking past some local hikers on walks of their own.

Our first stop was a nice bench Am Grünen Fleck with a view towards the mountains across the valley. We took a short break here, enjoying the view, not realizing it's one of the best views of the day. When we continued, we came across a middle-aged couple slowly going down, clearly interrupting their alone time.

After climbing some steeper trails and pushing through some dense bushes a few times, we eventually got onto a surprisingly wide abandoned tractor road. It was starting to get overgrown, but the path was still relatively fresh, so we could normally walk on it without getting a bunch of spiders and ticks on us.

The Kleiner Laber (1205 m) peak itself was higher up a small hill. I left David to take a break for a snack and some water, while I climbed through the wild hillside covered in pines to the summit, so that Komoot would recognize it as visited. Once I came back 5-7 minutes later, we continued along the wide road until we reached the end of the tractor road.

Although I have no idea how the tractor got up there, since the road just abruptly ends on both sides, we found a narrow walking trail that continued up the hill. The trail was a bit more overgrown, but it was still walkable. We continued along the trail all the way to Mühlberg (1305 m). I may be wrong, but the official marker on the map for this peak seems way off, since it lies in a small pit with most surrounding hills being higher than it.

From there we climbed up towards Großer Laber (1466 m). It was a surprisingly steep climb, but the slope started showing blackberry bushes here and there, so we enjoyed them along the way. Once we got to the ridge and walked past a small hunter shack, we reached the monument to Dieter, followed by the cross on the summit.

Once we passed the summit and started our descent, the trail we were taking disappeared. We had to climb down the slope covered in moss and old tree trunks that broke into many small pieces on every footstep. It wasn't difficult though, nothing compared to my Baumgartenjoch (1939 m) hike. Once we got down to the saddle going towards Ettaler Manndl (1633 m), we turned left and continued down the slope to Ettal, a small village between Garmisch and Oberammergau.

On the way to Ettal, we came across a small pool of mountain water, allowing us to cool ourselves down and take a dip. I didn't have swimming trunks with me, so the rest of the way I had to walk in wet underwear. It was worth it though, especially with a view of Kloster Ettal and Ochsensitz (1515 m) in the distance.

In the village we tried having some food in the nicely-rated Ristorante Don Camillo und Peppone, but they told us all the tables were reserved in advance for the evening. The whole place was dead empty, and we had to leave in 30 minutes, but that wasn't enough for them. We went across the street to Café-Restaurant Edelweiß and had a nice meal there, before taking the bus back to Oberau and taking the train home.

After everything, it was a great hike, we gathered quite a few berries along the way, and enjoyed the trip and the views. I would recommend some of this route for sure, but be prepared to climb some steep slopes and go through some dense bushes.