Berchtesgaden Klettersteig

June 19, 2015

Berchtesgaden Klettersteig

We keep saying: too many cool climbs, too little time. But it's good race training, and the flying weather continues to be bad, so we sneak them in here and there. Like yesterday, when there was a narrow gap between a decent morning and what would turn into a really rainy afternoon. We picked a short-ish route (meaning 4-5 hours instead of 11-12) and managed to get up and down with nice views without too many raindrops.

Just past the town of Berchtesgaden (famous for being Hitler's favorite vacation place) we parked at the end of the Konigsee. The river along the drive up had been the clearest green water we've seen so far, and obviously the clarity of the Konigsee was the reason.

http://www.bergsteigen.com/klettersteig/bayern/berchtesgadener-alpen/gruenstein-klettersteig-mit-var-isidor

The hike up passed a bobsled/luge track, which was a large concrete track running all the way down to the lake, making huge curves and turns as it dropped steeply down the mountain. A very contrived sport it seemed to us, especially in the middle of summer when the rough concrete sits there waiting for the ice of winter.

The klettersteig had a couple of options at the beginning before it all came together again, from easy to hard to extra hard. We went with just "hard" and actually didn't find it all that difficult although it did require a lot of upper body strength as usual.

The route was pretty nice, with good trails before and after the cabled sections. The cables did go on a bit along grassy slopes in the middle, taking us up and over a couple of knobs along a ridge. The final section (it was pretty new and not in our guidebook) was a super hard option, which we took, and enjoyed immensely. And finally at the top, we did get that view of the lake which had been touted in the guidebook. Luckily the weather was still holding then so we could see around us!