Pedals, peaks, and autumn mist – cycling the Watzmann’s wild side

TEXT & PHOTOS: NORBERT EISELE-HEIN

For this month’s issue of Discover Germany, Switzerland & Austria, travel writer and photographer Norbert Eisele-Hein gets his bicycle out the shed to explore the Berchtesgaden Alps and Germany’s third highest mountain, the Watzmann, in three autumnal acts.

While strictly speaking, it is only the third-largest, it is unequivocally the most beautiful – the 2,713-metre-high Watzmann is Germany’s mountain of mountains. Its eastern face plunges precipitously over 1,800 metres into Lake Königssee – the most massive escarpment in the entire Eastern Alps. Nowhere does an echo resonate more loudly than down there by the lake. Its neighbouring peaks are called Watzmannfrau (Watzmann woman) and Watzmannkinder (Watzmann children). But these names, at best, do justice to the number of petrified neighbours. Anyone who views the massif from Berchtesgaden will be speechless. Forget about a family idyll – the throng of peaks looks like the greedily gaping mouth of a great white shark.

View from the Feuerpalven onto the Watzmann’s east face – below the fog bath over Lake Königssee.

The boat service carries up to 550,000 guests across Lake Königssee annually, all of whom are transfixed by the mighty eastern wall and listen with awe and goosebumps to the countless echoes of the blaring flugelhorn that is played especially for visitors. While this is already impressive, Berchtesgaden achieved true cult status with the musical Der Watzmann ruft (The Calling of the Watzmann) by arguably Austria’s most famous singer-songwriter, Wolfgang Ambros.

To explore the region, we ventured up the mountain in a misty, three-day autumnal bike ride adventure. After all, we have heard that the golden season lends the Watzmann a special glow.

From Berchtesgaden, the Watzmann looks like the gaping mouth of a great white shark.

Act one: Gotzenalm

The ramp up to the Gotzenalm is considered a classic. But the tour is a challenge. Pedalling hard, we plunge into the forest on the Faselsberg, already awash in autumnal hues. At first, the fog still hangs thickly in the treetops, allowing only occasional rays of sunlight to flicker across the trail. The route steadily demands more and more pressure on the pedals. The mercury rises, the fog has temporarily faded. The first glimpses of Königssee, that sparkling emerald, spur us on. Our calves are already aching, but now the tour is really getting started. On the last 600 metres of elevation, the gradient repeatedly approaches the 25 per cent mark.

‘Klecker Rudi’ in front of his Gotzenalm.

Finally, at the top at 1,685 metres, Klecker Rudi, the Gotzenalm owner, grins at us. He has been running the hut for almost 20 years now. And his cooking is truly excellent: the creamy veal cutlets and the goulash are as soft as butter. A portion of Kaiserschmarrn, light and airy, dusted with fine powdered sugar – divine. The sunset spectacle with the panorama of the Watzmann’s east face, the Steinernes Meer, the Hagen Mountains, and the Hoher Göll provides the visual icing on the cake.

From the Feuerpalven, the view extends over the entire, fog-covered Königssee to the rock monolith of the Untersberg.

Later, over red wine, Rudi spills the beans. A serious biker himself, he has been to the USA and the Cape Verde Islands, while his personal record up to the Gotzenalm Alpine hut is 1 hour and 5 minutes (most people take between 2.5 and 3 hours). But that was a long time ago. Back then, the waitress up here was his girlfriend, and he visited her almost daily.

Early the next morning, with goosebumps, we quickly hop into whatever clothes we can find. Still at dusk, we cycle along a single trail through a small larch forest up to the 1,741-metre-high Feuerpalven. From the exposed vantage point, we float above a thick blanket of fog. The entire world seems wrapped in cotton wool. Lake Königssee directly below us looks like a bubble bath. The fearsome east face of the Watzmann rises directly from it. Suddenly, the whiplash of the rising sun sets everything ablaze, stirring up the blanket of fog and making the cold wall flush.

Descent from the freshly snow-covered Watzmannkar.

Act two: Litzlalm hut

We start at the southern end of Lake Hintersee in picturesque Ramsau. This route climbs gently, allowing us plenty of time to explore the spectacular rocky landscape. To the left, the Hochkalter and Hocheisspitze peaks tower into the sky. To the right, the Mühlsturzhörner peaks dominate. The Alps rise by three millimetres annually. As a result, in September 1999, a whopping 250,000 cubic metres of rock fell from the summit flank of the Kleiner Mühlsturzhorn. The entire area was covered in dust for weeks, we learn from the information board. If you briefly cross the steel suspension bridge on the Hirschbichl road, you can still see the area where the rock was ripped apart.

The tour remains technically easy. That is a good thing, because the destination, the Litzlalm mountain hut, is infamous. Inside and out, it is incredibly cosy and feels like something out of an Alpine museum, while the terrace offers a stunning panorama. It is no wonder, then, that commercial and local filmmakers are frequent visitors and that a few episodes of the famous Bergdoktor series have been filmed at the Litzlalm. Flanked by pinewood, deer, and chamois antlers, the snack and little schnapps taste especially good. At the end, we cruise through thick fog again, back to Lake Hintersee – with our headlamps on, of course, to illuminate the spooky scenery.

The Gotzenalm is at eye level with the impressive Watzmann east face.

Act three: Kühroint mountain hut

Our journey up to the Watzmann rings out in thick morning mist. The first frosty night has already piled a generous amount of snow on us. The technically easy, but at times also grimly steep, forest path leads in wide switchbacks over the Schapbachalm pasture up to the foot of the Watzmann. It is a good thing that the temperatures are rising again and it almost begins to feel like summer. Thus, the sun wins the battle against the first snowfields and sheets of ice in the shady bends. The Kührointalm pasture marks the end of the dead end and the bike ride is over for now.

The view up to the Watzmann massif is breathtaking. A short hike up to the Achenkanzel offers one last, ultimate view – a sheer vertical drop onto the lake, the variegated forests, and the pilgrimage church of St. Bartholomä with its dusky red spherical roofs. We return alive, albeit thoroughly caked in slush and sand. Our decision to do this trip in autumn was a lucky choice, given the psychedelic atmosphere, even though we had to pack an extra layer of clothing.

The Watzmann let us off the hook this time. In the original stage version of the Watzmann musical, only the servant survives. The Watzmann musical was and remains a stroke of genius. Incidentally, Berchtesgaden won a musical as its best advertisement. For us bikers, this story provides a true dream team – epic biking fun in a magnificent mountain landscape with a wonderfully offbeat musical backdrop. You can truly only find that in Berchtesgaden.