Himmelfahrtskommando - Ridge walk from the Friederspitz to the Schellschlicht

Hi there! 

The prolonged Ascension Day weekend of 2018 held lots of new stuff and surprises for me. 

But before I will start telling you about those, I would like to explain the title "Himmelfahrtskommando" because it's a wordplay with German words. The holiday "Himmelfahrt" (Ascension Day in English) is usually a prolonged holiday in Germany. The word in the title "Himmelfahrtskommando" means "kamikaze/suicide mission". Both contain the part "Himmelfahrt" and because our tour took place during the Ascenion Day holidays (Himmelfahrts-Feiertag) and was like a kamikaze mission in some parts, I picked that word as a wordplay for that trip. 

DF and me drove after a very thorough check of the weather forecast to Griesen (near Garmisch-Partenkirchen) on Thursday evening. Our goal was to make a ridge walk on the following day. The whole undertaking was something completely new for me as you will see in the following points: 

• first mountain tour alone with DF 😊 
• first time sleeping in a car
• first trackless ridge walk
• Little Stoffel's first tour ever
• first descent in the darkness (not planned)

But I rather start with the beginning. First of all things, Little Stoffel was ready to leave before me and impatiently waited on my trekking backpack. 

Ready to go!!! 

DF and me used the Thursday for packing and the drive. We found an asphalted and plain parking space close to the beginning of our hiking route in Griesen and we declared it to our department point. Since it was only 07:30 pm, we still had some daylight left to take a closer look to our surroundings. 


I knew the way until the junction to the Schellschlicht because I had already done that tour in August 2017. DF and I wanted to start via the Friederspitz but unfortunately there was not the tiniest, official sign for that in this area. First, we had planned to ascend via the so called Nudelgraben ("noodle ditch" - who names locations like that?!) but we changed our plans because of the difficult terrain. Our priority for the ascend was to get ahead as fast as possible. 

It was the second way on the right hand after the signposted junction towards the Rotmoosalm. It was a bit of surprise and a letdown that there were no real signs into the direction of the Frieder down in the valley - besides that someone had manually added the mountain Frieder on the sign to the Rotmoosalm. It was even more surprising because the Friedergrieß was signposted. 

It was time to get to sleep after that short expedition. The alarm was set for 04:45 am. The "bed" was something that I had to get used to first:  

The trunk of my Fabia 

...it was surprisingly comfortable after some trying and skittering around, so that we had a rather restful and relaxing night. 😴

The next morning we started already at 06:00 am, because our tour promised to be lengthy. Our route led to the Friederspitz, over the ridge to the Kreuzspitzl, further on to the Schellschlicht and back to Griesen in the end. It had a distance of about 20 km and 2.000 height meters. The clouds hung so deep, that we had no view at all at the beginning. 

Our route above the Nudelgraben towards the Friedergries had already a catch after only a few hundred meters. We were aware of walking through a natural reserve, but to stand in front of a high fence all of a sudden, which was surrounding an area for wildlife feeding, was completely unexpected. It wouldn't have been so bizarre, but the official forest trail was blocked by the fence and if the fence had been right on the other side, the trail would have been passable. So, we had to look for a smaller trail to walk parallely to the fence. The footprints were proof, that we were not the first ones doing it. 

We reached the Friedergries, where we had to cross a little stream at 06:40 am.

A Youtuber in the Friedergries. 😀

At this point, we took a wrong path, which seemed to have already mislead several others before us. There was a small trail leading to a bench shortly after we had reached the path on the other side of the Gries. The trail was just too inviting, but proved to be erroneous. We were on a practically freestanding, huge boulder, while the official trail was about 20-30 m on our right side. So we had to walk back a few meters to get back on track. 

On the road again 

The ascend steadily continued in steep serpentines. The most annoying thing were loads of ticks, which we had to pick from our trousers all the time. Since the clouds still hung very deep, we entered the mist after a short while. 

Misty mountains

We continued our way and the sky brightened up, so we had one of the most fantastic views on the Zugspitze and its surroundings. 

Wetterstein mountains

Team Stoffel on its way to the Friederspitz

The rest of the way towards the Friederspitz was relaxed. We had our first views on the ridge towards the Kreuzspitzl and the Schellschlicht. (I tried my best to draw the path but since you have to circumvent the ridge quite often, my drawing does not show the  100 % correct way.)

Little Stoffel at the Friederspitz

We reached the Friederspitz (2.049 m) at 11:00 am and renounced the Frieder, because of our tight schedule. There was a terrible draft up there, so we only had a very short break to eat, before we marched on towards the ridge. 

View to the Frieder

View to the ridge

The first descend to reach the ridge was not easy and we were relieved after we had finally climbed down on the right height. 

The ridge switched between easy walking parts, fields of mountain pines or climbing in the further course. The stone was extremely brittle, so we often held the whole thing in our hands instead of being able to hold on to it. Additionally, there was a lot of slippery grit, which made it impossible to stand safely from time to time. 

Mind your step

The orientation was not too hard thanks to cairns but we also took the wrong route sometimes. Luckily, we found our way back on the right trail - we could recognize it thanks to the cairns or sawed off mountain pines. You had to circumvent the ridge on the north side several times, so we also had contact with snow. The biggest problem was, that old footsteps were covered by snow. 

Ridge walk

At 15:30 pm, a sudden change of weather came up. The weather forecast had predicted harmless clouds, but the clouds were banked up and looked everything but harmless. We still had about 800 m towards the Kreuzspitzl, the highest point of our tour, at that time. 

It started raining again and again shortly after that and the thunder rolled unsettling towards us from the Wetterstein mountains. We hurried up to reach the Kreuzspitzl as fast as possible and to get down from there. 

DF and me reached the highest point of our ridge walk at 17:10 pm. The thunderstorm had calmed down and we continued our descent towards the Schellschlicht. 

Ridge to the Schellschlicht

The ridge walk to the Schellschlicht was a lot easier than the way before. Still, you needed absolute surefootedness because there were also a lot of slippery and brittle parts waiting for us. We passed two huge snow cornices on our last meters to the Schellschlicht's peak. 

Three Stoffel on the Schellschlicht

We reached the final peak for that day at 18:30 pm. As you can see on our helmets (picture above), the rain had become stronger again at that point. 

I had a little highlight, because I found my old summit register entry from the 24th of August 2017. A new entry and a short break later, we began with the descent. We still had 1.200 m height meters ahead of us. 

Descent from the Schellschlicht

The descent's first meters were just steep, slippery and just nasty to walk. And you even had a short ascent of about 50 height meters. Still, that trail seemed like heaven compared to the slog before. 😉 

We still were about 1.200 m high at 21:10 pm and it was time to take out our flash lights to make out the trail in the thick Schellwald (Schell-forest). It was a huge advantage, that I still remembered the way from my tour, which I had made one year earlier.

We returned to our car at 22:30 pm, 16 1/2 hours after our start in the morning. I think it's understandable, that we "robbed" a fast food restaurant after that...😁


Conclusion for the tour: Extremely demanding!!!
The tour was worth it, but DF and I agree, that we won't make a ridge walk in the Ammergauer Alps in the near future. Some research afterwards revealed to us, that most ridges there are known for the very "safe" and not brittle stone - and there are really things that are more reassuring. 
The tour needs surefootedness like a chamois and lots of courage. It was a very tough one as a starter for 2018.
The view was incredible and I can suggest a visit to the Friederspitz and the Frieder, if you are looking for a nice hiking tour to enjoy.  

You can find DF's Youtube video here: Himmelfahrtskommando - Gratwanderung über Friederspitz, Kreuzspitzl und Schellschlicht. 😉

See ya 'til the next mischieve! 

Your Katharina