Garmisch: sledding and giant icicles

On a recent sunny weekend, we headed south for some mountainy winter fun (it’s the best kind of winter fun, after all).

Our adventure started in Garmisch, where we bundled up in our warmest hiking gear and walked to the Partnach Gorge (Partnachklamm). 

In the summer this gorge is full of waterfalls; in winter these become large icicles. They’re pretty.

It costs €2 to hike the gorge, but that wasn’t deterring the crowds the day we went.

I guess lots of people like giant icicles.

At the top of the gorge we were greeted by a perfect sunny winter day.

Luckily the crowd had no interest in hiking beyond the gorge, so we had the snowy trails almost to ourselves.

We continued our showy hike upwards for a few hours until we reached Berggasthof Eckbauer, one of the mountain huts typical of the region.

We feasted on apple strudel, germknödeln, and glühwein while enjoying the view out the window.

From the hut it was a short walk to the next part of our adventure. The sleds we had pre-ordered at the beginning of the day were waiting for us at the top of the Eckbauerbahn (if one wanted to skip directly to the glühwein and sledding part of the day, one could ride this chair lift up from Garmisch).

We were a tad jealous of the people on sled bikes (no idea what they’re really called); we had reserved too late to get the typical wooden sleds, so we had these lovely plastic thingies.

They did the job, getting us down the 3.5 kilometer sled run, and back to where we had started.

I love winter.