Seven at one blow - the Mittenwalder high route and one wrong track

Hi! 😉

It's hard to believe but DF and I drove to the Alps again last weekend. Our goal this time was the Mittenwalder high route. 
It's a ridge walk that is mostly secured as a via ferrata (difficulty A/B). Usually, one starts the tour at the mountain station of the Karwendel cable car after having floated at about 2.200 m. You turn towards the Nördliche Linderspitze ("Northern Linderspitze") and follow the ferrata to the Brunnsteinanger where a tedious descent is waiting for you. 
Since DF and I love to go with the flow, we had decided to walk the tour the other way around. That resulted in a ascent of about 1.200 m over a distance of about 8 km.
And because that did not seem sufficient, we had picked the motto "Seven at one blow" for our tour. At first, our planning included the five summits during the high route, the Brunnsteinspitze and as a highlight the Westliche Karwendelspitze ("Western Karwendelspitze"). One might realize the choice of words with "at first" but you will see...😅

The tour was also special to me because I had tried to go the Mittenwalder high route one year before when I didn't have any climbing expertise at all. I had had the problem of a water shortage because of the high temperatures and had to shorten/quit the high route over the Heinrich-Noe-Steig (Heinrich-Noe-trail). I didn't want to fail a second time. 

It was Friday, the 15th of June 2016 when we drove southwards again - the trunk was fuller this time because we had not forgotten the mattresses. 😇 

We thougt at them this time...

We had almost no traffic jam during our drive and reached Mittenwald at the foot of the Karwendel mountains at 06:30 pm. We only had one short delay at the entrance to the town of Garmisch-Partenkirchen. There had been masses of visitors for the Zugspitz trail on the following day. 
We enjoyed a short walk after the long drive and walked up the Leutascher Klamm / Geister klamm ("Leutasch gorge" / "Ghost gorge"), you can also reach from Mittenwald. Thanks to the long days, it was no problem at all. 

We could already see some of the next day's route during our trail to the gorge. A summit close to the Nördliche Linderspitze attracted our attention. We did some research and identified it as the Gerberkreuz ("Gerber cross"). Usually, you go up there from the Mittenwalder Hütte ("Mittenwald Hut") including several climbing parts. There were supposed to be little trails for the descent that should lead to the Mittenwalder high route and to the Karwendel cabin car. DF and I had gotten curious about the adventure - so we decided to leave out the Brunnsteinspitze from our planned route and added the Gerberkreuz instead. The short way towards the gorge had already immensely changed our planning for the next day. 

The impressive Karwendel mountains

You have to walk upwards in steep serpentines to make about 60 height meters until you reach the gorge's entry. Some short trails lead the way to the installed "paths". Compared to the Partnach- or Höhlentalklamm, one cannot walk at the rocks on the edges in the Geisterklamm. There are complete steel constructions affixed to the mountain itself, so one can walk along the gorge. You walk over the abyss all the time - a very unique event. 

"Path" through the gorge

It goes deep down there...

There were some entertainment points in the gorge and we got scared by the ghost of the gorge quite a lot. The gorge is worth a visit and has its ver own charm.

Ghost of the gorge

Two Stoffel in the Geisterklamm

We returned to our car about two ours later and drove to the parking space for hikers close to the valley station of the Karwendel cabel cars. There were already several other campers but we were still able to find a suitable place for the night. The night was a lot more comfortable compared to another night in Reutte two weeks ago (see here: Gehrenspitze east ridge)  thanks to our mattresses, wool socks and more than enough blankets. 😉

We started in time on 05:00 am at Saturday morning. The first ascent up to the Leistersteig ("ladder trail) at 1.200 m was really nice to walk due to the cool temperatures. 

View from the ladder trail - the Große Arnspitze is on the left

We surrounded all of the Linderspitzen via the ladder trail and got higher following the Brunnsteinsteig ("Brunnstein trail"). There had been ladders leading over the Sulzliklamm ("Sulzli gorge") and the Sulzlibach ("Sulzli stream") in the ladder trail many years ago. A wonderful, wobbly and shaky pendant bridge had been installed after a lightning strike. 

You have to walk seven bridges...

...no! Luckily, it was only this one! 

We saw a warning sign "Be aware of the free running donkey!" only a few meters below the Brunnsteinhütte ("Brunnstein hut") at 1.560 m. And actually, there was a free walking donkey called Frederiko up there - most of the time followed by several children. I think DF was a better company for the poor donkey.😋

Two donkes at the Brunnsteinhütte 😂

Donkey panorama

We made a short break for breakfast at the Brunnsteinhütte (The cocoa, the coffee and the handmake cake are dreamlike! 😍). After that we continued towards the Brunnsteinanger (Brunnstein green) where we arrived at 11:00 
Despite the cool temperatures, the sun was already burning down like crazy and we needed some sun protection. We continuned after a few pictures to the Mittenwalder high route. 

A Youtuber in the Brunnsteinanger

Little Stoffel in the Brunnsteinanger

Brunnsteinanger-Panorama

The entry is still very humane and easy to walk. We had to wait several times because we were going against the main direction. We made use of those "forced" breaks to take some pictures and movie scenes. 

Entry to the Mittenwalder High route

I stayed on the official trail before our first summit, the Kirchlespitz (2.303 m). DF, the climbing-addict couldn't resist and chose the direct way up. To each his own...😝

When addiction calls...

We had quite a funny encounter between the Kirchlespitz and the Sulzliklammspitze (2.323 m). DF and I just walked along the way when a group of young guys saw him and one said "Hey, you're DF from Youtube!" 😂😂😂 
DF captured the encounter on video and we said goodbye to Kevin, Andi, Tim and Tom before we continued our hike to the Sulzliklammspitze (see also the post in DF's Community: DF's Youtube Community  ). It was really busy up there so we didn't stay for long. 

Sulzliklammspitze summit

Panorama view towards the Wetterstein

The further way dooown below us...

Summit number two had the "wonderful" disadvantage that one couldn't just follow the ridge from there on. You had to climb down and surround it spaciously until you could hike upwards again. And the descent is looong...
We passed the emergency bivouac, the Gamsanger ("Chamois green") and finally reached summit number three: the Südliche Linderspitze (2.306 m). 

And down it goes...!

Fooling around during the descent 😁

The comfortable area got less after the first Linderspitze. It went steep and deep down at both sides of the way. Still, that could not prevent DF from having some "fun" before the Mittlere Linderspitze: 

Don't do this at home! 

The Mittlere Linderspitze (2.239 m) became my personal crux - it's full of L.A.D.D.E.R.S.! 😱 ...and it hardly exists anything to torture me more than this. I hate ladders! Ladders up, ladders down and DF couldn't leave me and had to film me - thanks a lot! 😝

Ladders everywhere! 😱

We walked up in serpentines from a col after the Mittlere Linderspitze. We started our search for the trail to the Gerberkreuz at this point. 

View to the Gerberkreuz

DF quickly found the first hint to the path in the form of a cairn but we had to face several difficulties afterwards. There were three or four possibilities for the further way and non of them looked very gently. We quit our try because of the gravelly and slippery rock ledge area. It might be possible that the trail is visible from the Gerberkreuz but we couldn't see anything from our perspective. 
Due to the advanced time (it was already after 04:00 pm), we crossed the seventh summit from our list. The cable car wasn't within reach anymore, since the last one goes down at 04:30 pm. It only goes longer on Thursday (why only then?!) when the weather is nice. We still had the whole descent of about 1.400 height meters ahead and we wanted to walk most of it in the daylight. 

We fought back our way to the official trail. The further way to the Nördliche Linderspitze (2.374 m) was a piece of cake and we had our fifth summit. We could already see the cable car station, which was already out of service. 

View to the cable car station and the Westliche Karwendelspitze

We walked across broad and comfortable ways, made for tourists, on the last meters to the entry of the Karwendel ferrata.
We had reached the most difficult ferrata for that day about 12 hours after our start. The ferrata starts with a wonderful stepless traverse in the difficulty level C. We also mastered that part and reached the Westliche Karwendelspitze (2.385 m). 

Entry to the Ferrata

Middle part of the ferrata

Three Stoffel at the Westliche Karwendelspitze

We began our descent via the official trail at 05:45 pm. It lead us down to the mountain cable car station, over the Dammkar ("Damm cirque") and further towards our car. The way through the Dammkar is very barren and monotonous. It's not easy to find the way because the red markings have faded on many places. The Dammkar is not comfortoble for ascent or descent. 

View up to the mountain station

View down to Mittenwald

Descent via the Dammkar

The trails remained steep, gravelly and to describe it in one word: nasty until we reached the Mittenwalder Hütte (1.518 m). It felt like being blessed to walk on broader trails towards the woods. We really made it back to our car by daylight at 10:00 pm. 😊

Sunset 😍

We didn't manage our whole "Seven at one blow" tour but the descent was at least as exhausting as the seventh summit would have been. We can also say that we mastered the Westliche Karwendelspitze by fair means. 


Conclusion to the tour: 
2.000 height meters up and down and splitted over 18 km during 17 hours! 
Demanding, exhausting and just great! 
I could exchange my bad experience connected to the high route from last year through an extremely positive one. 😁
The views from the high route and from the Westliche Karwendelspitze are dreamlike. Since, I had gotten better in climbing, I had also been able to enjoy it a lot more. 😍
The ferrata is not too difficult at all and I would suggest it for beginners, but you need some stamina for the way up or down. 
The whole tour was varying and I had a lot of fun - and we still have to setlle a score with the Gerberkreuz. 😒

You find DF's video here: Seven at one blow - Mittenwalder High route.

See ya 'til the next mischieve. 

Your Katharina