Garmisch-Partenkirchen, April 19. – 22. 2018
(by Christa)
Winter has been long and February particularly cold. After the icy-cold stay on Sylt, we moved south to Garmisch-Partenkirchen to visit Michael’s aunt. The real reason was still another one: Michael wanted to take night shots of the starry sky from one of the mountains.
Already at home he had looked up the Herzogstand hut over Lake Walchen at 1700 m altitude. What does it really look like there? We had been traveling by car for 7 hours. After a short visit to the aunt we were off again in the evening to examine the lower station of the Herzogstand cable car and to see how we could get up there by foot. We found a comfortable path, and after an hour up even a lookout. “This could be a place for the photo night,” said Michael. “Tomorrow we’ll keep looking.”
So next morning we went up the mountain with the Herzogstand cable car. It was a beautifully clear, sunny day and in the early morning still quite lonely and still there. Our first exploration was the small Fahrenberg chapel. It was still in snow. So we went on to the mountain inn. The Herzogstand hut was again 200 m higher on the summit. A narrow serpentine path leads up there, and there too was still to much snow, so we had to turn back after a few meters.
Gradually, more and more people came up with the next cable cars. They did not all look like hikers but wanting to party up there in the inn. But we sought solitude and decided for the evening to go to the place we discovered the day before with the wonderful view of the Walchensee and the mountains beyond and to spend the night there.
By 6 pm the parking space was already quite crowded, we were obviously not the only ones wanting to spend the night up on the mountain. With a lot of luggage on our backs we climbed up – our place was still free. Michael set up the tripods with the cameras, while I looked for a reasonably comfortable sleeping place between stones and tree roots. During the sunset – the interval shots for the time lapse videos were already running – we took our picnic. Sunsets in the mountains are very different from those at the sea. There you can really see the sun dipping into the sea. In the mountains, it simply disappears, but then illuminates the mountain peaks in a wonderful pink.
Now it became dark quickly, and this was what the sleeping place was intended for. The cameras ran on their own, recording a frame every 35 seconds. It was warm in the sleeping bag, but instead of sleeping I watched the stars in fascination and followed their walk in the sky. The sounds were alien, the rustling in the foliage, the calls of the Uhus, the wind in the treetops. Being alone up here I would have been afraid!
By 3 o’clock, the alarm clock rang for us to watch the Milky Way galaxy, now being fully visible on the horizon, which is so beautiful to see on the videos. It was cold and the wind had increased. We sat on the bench, freezing, unfortunately the stars did not warm us. Around 5 o’clock the sun announced itself with a red sky behind the mountains to the east. The breakfast was meager, I froze, while Michael served the cameras and ran warm. At 7 o’clock we cleaned up, packed and shouldered everything for the descent. Back at the hostel we had breakfast, then went to sleep and dream of a walk on the Milky Way, where milk and honey flows.
The next day we drove to the Eibsee below the Zugspitze and surrounded it together with many other people. It has been a very warm Sunday!
The focus of our journey was the starry night in the open air, which – at home – had worried me so much and which then was so quiet, so beautiful and inspiring.
Thank you for this experience!!