This is a sequel to last year’s Outdoor TODO list 2011.

Planned tours

2011 I hiked more than ever but it looks like I might easily top this in 2012. Thanks to some lucky circumstances I was able to take 17 days of vacation into 2012. My current plan to get rid of them is to take 40 at the end of the year and leave cold Germany in November for New Zealand to walk the southern half of the Te Araroa.

Unlike last year, holidays create a lot of 4-day weekends this year. I don’t have any specific plans yet. But from the top of my head I would like to do at least one multi-day trip to Hoher Tauern and one to Karwendel. And I would like to finally ascend Half Dome.

Additionally, I registered for a marathon in April (Dreiburgenland Marathon) and I’m thinking about adding two more (Karlsruhe & Munich).

Gear

Currently I’m pretty happy with my gear. I might upgrade my Laser Competition if I do the Te Araroa. So no urgent plans to go shopping and I will keep my resolution from 2011: get rid of at least one old piece of equipment, before buying a new piece.

Tuesday, November 1 was a public holiday, had a decent weather forecast and I couldn’t come up with a better plan. So I decided to hike from Garmisch-Partenkirchen to the summit of Zugspitze. Read more »

From last Sunday to Tuesday I walked a short section of the Pennine Way. If (like me) you haven’t heard of it:

The Pennine Way National Trail, 268 miles of chasing the Pennine Mountain tops along the rugged backbone of England, from the Peak District through the Yorkshire Dales and over Hadrian’s Wall to the Cheviots. Amongst the finest upland walking in England.

We didn’t start right on the Pennine Way but took the bus to Barnard Castle instead, because the only thing that is worse than English weather is her majesty’s public transport system. The walk itself was nice. Very well marked and easy to follow. The only thing I didn’t like was the fact that we were mostly walking through farmland and it never really felt like getting away from civilization. Given the location this is hardly a surprise but worth mentioning.

Yesterday we went walking along Hadrian’s Wall with great weather. We passed Sycamore Gap (aka the Robin Hood Tree), Vercovicium and a few very nice cliffs that surely have a name, too, but I can’t find it. Afterwards we enjoyed a nice burger in The Twice Brewed Inn just a few hundred meters away from Hadrian’s Wall.

View 2011-08-19 11:05 in a larger map

I had planned a two-day hike in the Hoher Tauern region. The weather forecast on Friday was bad, but I packed some of my gear anyway. On Saturday it looked a little better so I quickly got up, packed the remaining bits and pieces, filled a large thermos cup with coffee and hit the road at 7:30. Read more »

Right now I have more tours to write about than time to do the writing. Therefore this time only a short report about two tours, three and one week ago. Read more »

A few weeks ago a colleague told me about a paragliding course he was about to attend with Fly for fun. This sounded like a great idea and a few minutes later I booked myself a two-day trial course.

The weather this weekend wasn’t great but still good enough for the course to take place.

Saturday morning 9:00 a small group of 5 met at Almhof Roswitha to receive a very short briefing before we walked roughly 500 meters to the nearby practice slope. One of us already had some experience and just needed to refresh his skills. Michael, our instructor, picked my wing to talk us through the setup and therefore I got the dubious honor to run down the hill first. I needed two or three tries to get the wing above me and make it down the hill.

I slowly got better but it took nearly two hours of continuos practice until I finally took off and flew for a few meters. We continued the practice until 13:30 and at the end everybody was able to fly for the task 20 or 30 meters and land safely. The only casualty was a cattle fence that slowed down one landing.

Sunday we met earlier. At first there was no wind at all but we practiced some no-wind starts which mostly went pretty well. The only notable exception was yours truly. I failed to slow down the wing enough so it overshot me, pulled me down face forward and I rolled over one shoulder. It must have looked epic because I heard a number of concerned comments.

Anyway, I survived and made a few more successful trips down the hill. We got a few short periods of good wind but there were long periods without any wind. According to Michael, everybody had surpassed the learning goal for the day so nobody was too unhappy when we called it a day once it started raining.

I had a great weekend and I’m thinking about adding another course soon..

Last weekend I had the strong urge to spend some time away from my laptop. Well, one of my goals for this year was to do a few vie ferrate (yes, this is the correct plural [1]) and fortunately I bought a guide book a couple of weeks ago with a number of medium difficulty via ferratas in the alps.

I picked the “Innsbrucker Klettersteig” from Hafelekarspitze to Kemacherspitze then on the Langer Sattel and from there back down to the cablecar station.

Only the first 2 hours were recommended in my guide because it gets more difficult later on. I haven’t done a Klettersteig in 2 years and wasn’t sure how to handle these difficulties so I decided to follow the recommendations. The nice thing about this tour was that the most difficult parts were at the beginning. But even these bits were not exceptionally difficult, roughly 3 grades below what I can climb indoors and only a bit more difficult than what I had climbed up to Buchstein “free solo”.

Weather was good. Sunshine, just a few clouds but a lot of wind. I was happy that I brought my windshirt.

The Klettersteig was pretty busy, there were two groups of 2 and 3 people ahead of me but fortunately they were moving fast and I never had to wait for them to get out of one of the roped pieces.

Even the supposedly difficult part wasn’t very challenging. If you are able to climb 50 meters on a ladder you should be able to get by without any major problems, all difficult sections were defused by metal steps.

The Klettersteig runs along the ridge from Hafelekarspitze to Kemacherspitze and roughly two-thirds of it are fitted with metal ropes. I didn’t really keep track, but I would guess that I actually attached myself to the metal only half the time. Many places are not difficult and if I had seen them without the protection I wouldn’t have worried anyway.

The view down both sides off the ridge was great, the air was clear and I could look far, to the left over the Inn valey to the “Südkette” and to the right to Karwendel. Even though I stopped frequently to take pictures I still moved quickly along the ridge and reached Kemacherspitze.

Under the summit cross I had my first real break. Lying on a warm rock I enjoyed the sunshine for 15 minutes before I got up to finish the last bit.

It took another 20 minutes to get down to Langer Sattle where I took off my climbing harness after a little over 2 hours.

From Langer Sattle the trail went down parallel to the ridge back to the lower cable-car station. After perhaps 5 minutes I was surprised by an alpine ibex standing less than five meters to my left. Unlike all other ibex I had seen before this one slowly got up, turned around to face me and just looked at me. I slowly took out my camera and took a few pictures. I was surprised that the ibex wasn’t scared of me at all.

I slowly continued along the trail and all he did was turn his head to keep looking at me and scratched his back. This animal surely deserved the price for coolest alpine animal I have every met.

After 5 minutes I guess he was sure that I was no threat so he turned around and sat down again ignoring me.

I continued to the station, where I enjoyed a nice meal in the sun before I took the next cable car down to my car. Overall the Innsbrucker Klettersteig is a a lot of fun and should be doable for anybody with a little bit of climbing or Klettersteig experience.

View 2011-06-05 10:09 in a larger map

[1]: Via Ferrata (wikipedia)

A via ferrata (Italian for “road with irons”. Plural vie ferrate. In German, Klettersteig) is a mountain route which is equipped with fixed cables, stemples, ladders, and bridges. The use of these allows otherwise isolated routes to be joined to create longer routes which are accessible to people with a wide range of climbing abilities. Walkers and climbers can follow vie ferrate without needing to use their own ropes and belays, and without the risks associated with unprotected scrambling and climbing. They are found in a number of European countries, including Italy, Germany, England, Scotland, Wales, France, Austria, Slovenia, Romania, Switzerland, Spain, Sweden, Norway, and Poland (famous Orla Perć); and a few places in the United States, Canada, Malaysia and Singapore. The first via ferratas were built in the Dolomite mountain region of Italy during the First World War, to aid the movement of the Italian mountain infantry.

This is part VI and the last part of my TGO challenge report. Read more »

I promise there will be some non-TGO content soon but for now this is part V of my report on the 2011 TGO challenge. Read more »

This is part IV of my report on the 2011 TGO challenge. Read more »