UKC

Has anybody ever climbed this mountain before? I'm being sponsored to summit it in early July, and I was wondering what kind of conditions to expect at the top at that kind of time.

It's an Alpine mountain standing at 2,962m asl. Are we talking crampons and snow caves, or summer boots and hammocks?

In reply to Rapsling:

What route are you taking up it?

In reply to Rapsling:

Err, you can get a train and cable car to the top. Or just a cable car. When you are there you can visit the restaurant, wander round the tourist shop and art gallery and then stay the night in the DAV hut. There are half a million visitors a year so you won´t be alone. It´s generally snow-free in the summer.

In reply to Rapsling:

Huge variety between the different approaches.

http://www.zugspitze.at/zugspitzbahn/en/klettersteig.html

Route above is direct, need an early start though as gets very busy, helmet obviously a must, top of mountain can be very crowded at weekends and public holidays because of easy mechanical access.

There are better routes which are all longer and more involved, but the route above is a belter, lots of scrambly/walky bits but the corkscrew is a real highlight.

Beating the crowds makes the route though as waiting times can be long when busy.

Cable car descent is by far the best option, given starting point is cable car station!!

Cool beer (expensive) at top is worth the price....

Cheers,

Bruce

In reply to Rapsling:


Approach shoes in summer for the Jubiläumsgrat or any of the walking routes from the south and west sides. I haven't done the Höllental klettersteig route; you might want boots or at least microspikes on your approach shoes for that, apparently it has a substantial stretch of permanent snow.

You do want decently warm and weatherproof clothing though; you can get hefty storms at short notice and a couple of people died in a blizzard on a mountain race up there in July a couple of years ago.

(There's half a metre of fresh snow at the moment, but that's unusual for this time of year and it'll be gone soon)

In reply to AlanLittle:

The "permanent snow" is a small but very real and in the top part somewhat steep glacier. When snow covered you won´t need axe and crampons, but roping up may be a good idea. Later in the season you will definitely need axe and crampons. When I did the route several years ago, I thought I saw a climber a bit further up the glacier from the place where the ferrata starts (rather wide bergschrund at the time!), but lost sight of him. Later I thought I heard someone call for help, and waited and listened for a while with another group of climbers. We then decided that it was just some idiots on the summit. Later we learned that a guy had fallen into a crevasse trying out his new crampons, and had to wait for two days before he was found.

CB

PS who sponsors someone to climb Zugspitze? Taking the cable car may require sponsoring given the current prices, but otherwise it seems a strange goal. Rather like climbing Snowdon, just a bit bigger and even more non climbers / walkers on the summit. When I arrived at the Münchner Haus after doing the Stopselzieher ferrata from the Austrian side in rather shit weather several old ladies wanted to be photographed with a proper, snow covered mountaineer. Bizarre.

In reply to AlanLittle:


Update: a whole metre.

In reply to Rapsling:

We did the Hollental klettersteig end of june. we needed crampons as it crosses a glacier and also via ferrata kit. There was quite a bit of snow of the top part of the klettersteig. It's a fantastic route and beautiful mountain

In reply to cb294:


My ascent was with well known alpanist Rab Carrington. The lower part of the mountain was despatched with much gasping for breath, either the altitude or the train fare got to us. The horde of smiling oriental faces who met us at advanced base camp were sadly not porters clamouring for our business but Chinese tourists wanting us to take photo´s of them. Despite this setback we carbo-loaded on schnitzel and beer and forced on over several hundred feet of inhospitable terrain to the summit. the highest mountain in Germany despatched with aplomb! We tried to traverse the mountain via the Austrian side but the door was shut.

In reply to jimtitt:

My mother got out of the car, took one look at the Eibsee cable car and burst into tears. Without even looking at the prices. We went for a walk round the lake.

My mother in law pretended - almost convincingly - to be bitterly disappointed when we discovered it was still officially ski season and we would have had to pay peak season prices for the train or the cable car. We went for a walk round the lake.

In reply to AlanLittle:

Always a bit dramatic sitting on the cafe at the top seeing klettersteig (ers) coming over the balcony loaded up with kit for effect!

I've done it in winter a couple of times, not to be taken lightly and ended up staying in the Hollengrat hut for 2 days. Great mountain, Garmisch is great and so much more to do. Good old Bavaria :0)

Sorry, I'd just like to clear up that I meant I was raising charity sponsorship with this expedition. I didn't mean I was being sponsored by am equipment manufacturer.