Day 194: Sunday 28 September – Bavaria: A Walk On The Jenner Mountain, by Ken

There was a thick fog hanging over the camping ground when we got up, the temperature was less than 5°. I thought it was a portent of another fine day ahead, Jane wasn’t so sure.

Jane set off for the facilities taking our rubbish with her. She was soon back laughing so much she couldn’t speak. It took a while before she was able to blurt out her zapper for the door to the facilities was in a dumpster and the rubbish bag was in her hand! She needed my help to retrieve the zapper. We retrieved it by Jane almost disappearing head first into the bin while I hung onto her legs to stop her falling all the way in. Unfortunately, the circumstances didn’t permit a photograph to be taken of this lapse in Jane’s coordination.

Early Morning In The Camping Ground As Seen From Mabel

As dawn broke the fog started to clear slowly and by 9:00 there was mist hanging around some of the mountains, but lots of blue sky. We drove the short distance to the large car park at Konnigssee. There an elderly German couple were trying to buy a parking ticket but couldn’t get the machine to work. They had left their discount card in the slot, I removed it and pressed the OK button which gave them a ticket for a day’s parking. I didn’t understand what they said to me, but it wasn’t thank you and it appeared that wasn’t what they wanted. Another elderly German couple became involved, it appeared they only wanted two hours parking but they had paid €2 which was enough for a day and the machine didn’t give change. I left them to it and walked to another machine. The two couples were still pressing buttons five minutes later when Jane and I had collected our gear and locked up Smarty.

We walked the short distance to the Jennerbahn cable car station where I asked for two return tickets to Bergstation 1170 metres above and close to the summit of the Jenner mountain. Our plan was to take a two hour walk down from the top to the cable car’s Mittelstation and decide whether to ride the rest of the way down, or walk. Standing in the queue for the cable car I looked at the ticket and spotted it was only for one person, I had asked for zweimal bitte, and Jane had heard me. I had to go back to the by then much longer queue for tickets to get a second ticket.

We rejoined the queue for the cable car. There were a number of men in traditional lederhosen, one of the men had a large case that we thought contained a brass musical instrument. There was also a woman wearing a dirndle dress. Jane wondered whether there was an event happening on the mountain.

The cable cars were two person gondolas. The man put his large case in one and he and his mate, also in lederhosen, climbed in another. Our gondola climbed rapidly on its way to the Mittelstation 570 metres above. Below us were cows, some apparently dozing in the early morning sun, above us paragliders were drifting slowly downwards. The views got better and better as we climbed, the northern end of Lake Konigssee lay directly below us and to the north we could see the Eagle’s nest perched on the top of Kehlstein.

On Our Way

Looking Down The Valley Towards Bercthesgaden

Reservoir In The Mountains

At Mittelstation our gondola detached from the main cable and as we moved slowly forward an attendant asked if we were going to Bergstation. I pointed up. There was no need to get out, our gondola continued a short distance and attached itself to a second cable. I still don’t know how they do that. The views on the 600 metre ascent to the top were quite breathtaking. What seemed a very long way below us we could see our camping ground with camper vans and caravans appearing as white specks.

At the cable car’s top station lots of people were sitting in the sunshine on a terrace eating and some were drinking beer at 10:30 in the morning. There were a few dogs there, including a liver coloured Labrador. A walk wound its way up to the summit of the Jenner mountain. It was only 74 metres above us, but we decided we would rather have gravity on our side and set off down a good track heading for Mittelstation, signed as being 2 hours away. 

Sunday Brunch in the Sun at Cable Car Top Station With Trampers Making Their Way To The Summit

Liver Coloured Lab

Setting Off Down The Mountain

Lots of Paragliders Out Today

We hadn’t gone very far when we saw a pinnacle of rock surmounted by a cross off to the left of our track. People were perched on the top of the pinnacle. We decided we should go and investigate. A track led across a narrow ridgeline to the base of the pinnacle. The track wasn’t too hard going, but a bit of rock climbing was required to scale the last 10 mteres, or so, of the very steep face beneath the summit. We both managed to get to the top only to find there was a near vertical drop of hundreds of metres off the top. Neither of us could pluck up the courage to stand on the top and after a few minutes we clambered back down. The descent was a lot harder than going up as it wasn’t always obvious where to put our feet.

Pinnacle

Jane Nearing The Summit

A very short distance along the main track we came to a grassy slope where people were gathering. Men and women were unloading musical instruments from a trailer attached to a fire brigade Land Rover and carrying them to the top of the slope. We climbed to the top where musicians were setting up music stands and tuning up their brass instruments. Most of the men were dressed in traditional lederhosen, the women in the group were more conventionally dressed. As we watched more musicians arrived including the two men that had travelled up in the cable car just ahead of us unpacked a gleaming tuba (I think) from his backpack. Others arrived with the bulbpus bit protruding from backpacks. There was what appeared to be a stone altar covered in a cloth with candles and greenery. A while later a woman arrived dressed in traditional dress and then a monk in a brown habit. The woman handed out hymn sheets to what was by than a sizeable crowd that included the liver coloured Labrador and its owners. A church service was about to start 1700 metres up in the mountains. We stayed for the first hymn, the combination of the brass band and the congregation’s singing were simply amazing.

Pinnacle As Seen From Church Service

Band Setting Up at 1100 metres (altar in foreground)

Our walk wound its way downwards and anti-clockwise around the mountain. The route meant we got an ever changing view as we walked. At one point we passed under the cableway that had taken us up to the top. Nearing Mittelstation we came to cows grazing in a meadow, some were wearing bells, a uniquely alpine sound. We passed a farmstead that we assumed was there for the summer pastures and wouldn’t be occupied during the winter months.

We were quite sore by the time we reached Mittelstation – Jane’s hips were aching and my knees were distinctly wobbly. It was approaching 13:00, we decided to have lunch and then decide whether we would take the cable car back down, or continue walking for another two hours. We took a table outside at the Gaststätte next to Mittelstation, we both ate Wiener Schnitzel and potatoes which turned out to be fries, it seemed to me it was the German equivalent of fish and chips. We felt a lot better having eaten and rested. We thought it would be sensible to take the cable car back down, but being sensible isn’t a strong point of ours, so we decided to walk.

Nearing Mittelstation

Lunch Break

With the benefit of hindsight, we should have taken the easy option. We had been walking much less than an hour down a track that was quite steep in places when we both started to struggle – Jane’s hips were complaining and both my knees had a tendency to buckle sideways. We sat on a bench for a while and felt a lot better – for a while. In all we stopped at four benches to ease our aching limbs. We talked about how unfit we had become during our trip. Jane hadn’t had her usual visits to the gym and my daily walks with Ziggy in the bush were now a long time ago. Jane thought we should both sign on at her gym when we get back. That wasn’t a bad idea at all. We made it back down to the base station in just about two hours by which time our joints had freed up somewhat.

House Towards The End Of Our Walk

We were both very thirsty and I was tempted to stop for a beer at one of the biergartens we passed between the station and the car park. I managed to resist that and settled for a lot of water and cups of tea back at Mabel.

We sat and did nothing for a while. It wasn’t long before Jane felt sufficiently recovered to take a trip to the camping ground’s laundry to put one load of washing through. I was content to sit and read.

We weren’t very hungry after our schnitzel and fries at lunchtime. Our evening meal was a tin of Croatian bean soup, this one came with small pieces of sausage, and a slice of toast each.