 Poster: A snowHead
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Garmisch-Partenkirchen, one of the world's most significant ski resorts having hosted Hitler's 1936 Winter Olympics, has the disadvantage of an altitude of only 700m, and most of its skiing is below 2000m.
Intriguingly, though, it has an easy-skiing area on the top of the Zugspitze (Germany's highest mountain), which even includes a small glacier, so there's nearly always some skiing available.
This new article on the Reuters Foundation site looks at Garmisch's challenges in the face of the rising snowline. If you're in Munich or Bavaria the place is well worth a visit, particularly if you're lucky enough to be there when rain gives way to snow!
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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While I wouldn't recommend spending a week in Garmisch, for a day trip it's definitely worth a visit. The ski area up on the Zugspitze is relatively boring on piste, but the off piste there is brilliant, and given the height, the powder stays powder for a long time. Me and some of the other fanatics at work sometimes spontaneously go down to the Zugspitze on a powder day (Powder Alarm! Sorry, can't work today. Powder's up. Gotta go...). The choice for us on days like that either the Zugspitze or the Dammkar in Mittenwald.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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Interesting, Mike. Do the powder slopes you ski on the Zugspitze go well below that flattish area on top? In which case, do you ski into Austria or Germany?
I've only spent a day or two up there, and I couldn't quite figure out how the mountain works. Are there any pistes which give you the full vertical benefit of being up that high, or are you restricted to the top section of the mountain?
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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The interesting area is below the glacier to the left and right of the 'Weisse Tal' down to the Brunntal drag lift at the bottom. The glacier area itself is small and flat (and rapidly decreasing in size). Not sure of the exact number of vertical meters, but if you take the drap up the Wetterwandeck and then ski down to the left of the piste to the Brunntal drap lift then you have a powder run adding up to about 3-4Km in one line. Likewise if you take the run to the right of the Sonnenkar lift down to the Brunntal then you also have an equaly long run. There are endless variations on the theme, so you can quite often spend a whole day laying down tracks in the untouched! That's not bad by any resort's standards.
Here's a map of the area http://www.zugspitze.de/pistenplaene/zugspitze.htm
Not sure exactly where the border between Austria and Germany runs up there. There is no easy way down to the valley from the top, at least not in the direction of Garmisch. I'm told that you can go over the back in the direction of Austria, but that you need to have an ice axe and ropes etc to do it, so that's not really my idea of fun.
Likewise in the Dammkar in Mittenwald you also have an unpisted run that adds up to about 7Km, whereby the last 3 klicks are on a forest track back down to the Karwendelbahn. See www.dammkar.de .The Dammkar is an official 'Freeride' area, meaning that there are no pistes at all! I have also spent days there just laying down one track after another in the untouched, which makes it better than any of the 'big' resorts like St.Anton in my book, purely because the big resorts get completely skied out in the first few hours after a snowfall!
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