The Top of Germany

This is Ian.

I have now climbed the highest mountain in Germany.

I went with my Boy Scout troop to Garmisch, Germany, a big vacation destination for Americans and also right at the base of the Zugspitze, Germany’s highest mountain at 2,962 meters above sea level. (Almost 3 kilometers, 9,718 ft, or almost two miles above the ocean!)

After coming from Euro Bike, my dad and I started hiking much later than my troop did.  So, the first day, we moved quickly to get to the hut that we were staying at for the night. We followed a perfectly blue river of glacier water coming down off the mountain.

 

We also saw lots of little animals along the trail, like this lizard.

 

After joining up with my group, we hiked for 20 kilometers over steep rock and snow slopes to reach the summit.

We stopped at a second hut for a snack and longer break to fill bottles and layer up for the next 2 kilometers over snow before we stopped for lunch.  Instead of putting on jackets, most of us took jackets off and hiked up in short sleeves after sweating a lot on the rock faces before.  Since we were almost constantly moving, keeping warm was no problem.

After a nice snowy hike and passing a lot of people hiking up the mountain with their dogs running in the shoulder deep snow for them, we stopped on some rocks for lunch:  ancient MRE’s (the military meal that never goes bad). We traded around spicy Mexican macaroni for pound cake, “bullet proof” crackers for cold rice, and so on. After the highest lunch of my life while standing on solid ground, we made the final hour push top the summit up a steep, snow covered slope.   After about 30 minutes to go 200 meters, we pulled ourselves over snow covered rocks using the guide rails and ice covered cables. After a windy, narrow hike over a ridge, we crawled up a last final snow covered slope.  I stood up and realized, “I did it!”