a SHORT walk in Bad Reichenhall!

We enjoy walking and decided to go for a walk on one of our days in Bad Reichenhall. Walter found a nice loop that would take us up to one of the lower peaks. 10.5km and about 4h30 sounded like a nice day out.

Well – we started our walk and Glenda floated the idea of hiking to the summit of Predigtstuhl which is where one of the very long cable cars goes upto. The first part of our walk was on the same path and it didn’t take long to agree to her plan. What else would we do for the afternoon anyway. As an added incentive our hotel room looks at this mountain and even the décor inside the room celebrates the mountain. No option but to climb it. It was interesting at the start of the hike seeing Germans dressed in tradional Bavarian clothing for their hike.

Starting at just under 500m the original hike would have taken us up to 1000m, the new hike would take us up to over 1600m. Suitably fed we set off through the town of Bad Reichenhall to reach the start of the hike, about 2km away.

The first part of the hike was relatively easy walking up through the forest on well marked trails. Given we were heading for the summit via the most direct route – read steepest route – it soon got a lot steeper. In parts we had to use our hands getting up some steep rocks. In other parts we were fortunate to have wooded ladders to help.

At times the destination looked so far then at others it was ‘just up there’. Hard and tiring, but so rewarding.

The scenery was mind blowing. Big views – we cannot help but be in awe of the Alps. And so we reached the top without incident. We thought the effort merited a reward. There was an Alm (mountain guesthouse with food and sometimes accommodation), and so we had cake and Walter had a beer.

We looked at taking a different route down, but after starting out on it realised it would bring us down a long way from the town. It was better to backtrack down the way we had come up. Whilst difficult in parts, going down is so much easier. We were glad to get back – our legs agreed.

All in all, a good decision to do this hike. It should have been a 17km hike in 7h30. We did 17.2km in 5 hours. A good effort – we will enjoy our dinner.