Shennanigans in Garmish, Beautiful Bavarian Weather

Yesterday was absolutely wonderful in terms of weather. No clouds in the sky, temperature was a great 22° (71.6°F). A couple of friends and I decided to take an excursion out to Garmish, a town near the tallest point in Germany, the Zugspitze, which stands at a hight of 2962m (9718 feet)above sea level. Unfortunately the Cog Train the leads up to the observation area on the mountain was shut down for the day. Bummer. We wanted to go on top of the closest mountain to get a better view, and perhaps catch a glimpse of the Zugspitze. At the base of Hausberg, we tried asking if we could take a cable car up, but unfortunately the cable car had ceased operation just 30 minutes prior. Everything was starting to crumble. We decided to do something very stupid, and ultimately ridiculously fun....

Following the cable car route adjacent to the ski slopes (still covered with snow), we trekked up snow and melt/mud all the way to the top of Hausberg in our worn tennis shoes whilst wearing t-shirts. Hausberg stands at 1340m (4397 feet) above sea level and the journey took about 2 and some hours, because i am severely out of shape and well....we were fighting for grip on mud and snow. Seriously it is as though we took two steps to move one. We waved to passing skiers and even climbed one of the towers cable car towers for a quick picture. The part that  made us really laugh, was a couple of germans in Lederhosen, skiing down the slopes.

 Finally we reach the top and it was absolutely beautiful. I was dead tired, but it was just so quite, no cars, just birds, and beautiful picture-esque alps with he Zugspitze in view. We realized how insignificant our trek was once we saw how much higher Zugspitze stands....

We needed to get back because the sun was setting; during our decent, we had gathered way too much momentum and started slipping around everywhere. Eventually it turned into us falling on our asses and slidding down snowy icy skii slopes on our bums. I took a couple of videos but the internet at the hostel is way too slow to allow uploading. Oh my god i was laughing the whole way down. I wish I had gloves, and boots, but it was ridiculously funny watching all three of us sliding down a slop trying to gain control. With the cunning use of leaning, rucking and rolling, we kindof had an idea of how to navigate some serious corners, but for dangerous stuff, we just flattened out to slow down and stuck to the mud on the side with trees aiding out decent. We were soaking wet, our feet were squishy, but what took us 2+ hours to go up, took the better part of 25 minutes to go down.  it was so ridiculous but it was the most fun i've had in a long while (and cheap to!).

a day of good times cost 10 euro in train tickets. Honestly, i would totally do it again (sliding down a hill) but next time, maybe take a ski lift a couple hours earlier.

Small cell phone pic not even half way up the mountain

Today is 25° (77°F) so i broke out the Flip Flops and will walk around town taking some pictures. It's absolutely lovely here in Munich, but it would be nice to make some friends. I miss a bunch of people in Braunschweig and the Lions Racing Team but new opportunities, new experiences.

Click here for the Full Flickr Album to Garmisch-Partenkirche