If you look up on the Watzmann, you not only see the alpine panorama, but also eagles circling. And sometimes even bigger birds
The train rolls at S-Bahn speed through forests, past pastures, between rock walls, up, up, higher and higher, into a mountain world where witches slumber, a magical forest grows and a stone king watches over everything. “King” is what they call the Watzmann, whose summit towers 2713 meters – only surpassed in this country by the Zugspitze. Shortly before the destination of the train journey, he is enthroned in the sky over Bischofswiesen in the afternoon sun.
King Watzmann looks at a landscape as if painted, a realm of majestically towering cliffs, enchanted corners and deep valleys, in which fable stories have survived the centuries and even strange natural phenomena take place today. In some places the temperature falls within a few meters as if by magic – ten degrees, 20 degrees. Where streams dry up before they reach the lake – and yet flow into it. Where snowfields survive the summer as if they were removed from the course of the seasons – 2000 meters below the snow line.
What if it really was a fairy tale world? What if the golden eagle circling high above the peaks of Halskopf and Teufelskopf could speak? Would he report on the bright sunshine and the great thermals that invited him to hunt after two gray rainy days? Or would he complain about the miserable year 2020, in which the 15 pairs of eagles observed by the Berchtesgaden National Park could only get through a single young bird? Would he be amazed at the hiking group down in the Klausbachtal, whose members excitedly stretch their arms skyward over and over again whenever they slide over the ridge?
“I can’t work so much,” grumbles a man from the group with shoulder-length hair and a ten-day beard, “if I’m always interrupted by these cattle during my lecture!” Of course, Klaus Melde, ranger in the national park, doesn’t mean it seriously. He is happy when the subject of his lecture actually shows itself to the participants in the eagle walk. By no means always happens, but today Melde had justified hope. Because of the two rainy days before. “The eagle probably just sat around there. He’s not bled. ”Today hunger drove him to heaven.
Ranger Melde is one of a good 100 employees of the Berchtesgaden National Park, founded in 1978, 210 square kilometers, the second oldest and only alpine national park in Germany. Characterized by three valleys that stretch north-south and nestle against each other: the Klausbachtal, above which the eagle circles, in the west. In the middle the Wimbachtal, flanked by Hochkalter and Watzmann. And at the foot of the Watzmann east face the valley that was flooded by the Königssee – steep, narrow, like an alpine fjord.
The fact that 2020 was a lousy eagle year, more lousy than ever in over 25 years of monitoring, was the coldest, wettest June in decades, explains Melde: “Wetness or a cold snap can kill a young eagle.” All in all, however, the population is stable . The conditions in the national park are made for the rare golden eagle. The updraft. The steep walls, fine for cliffs. The richly laid table. “Here you can snap your claws down to your heart’s content on rabbits, marmots and young chamois,” the eagle would, if he could speak, whisper with satisfaction.
Perhaps, while he is at it, he would also express his astonishment at the imposing, even rarer occasional guest who now and then floats into the Klausbachtal and with his wingspan of a good two and a half meters even outstrips him, the king of the skies. The bearded vulture has been reintroduced to the Alpine region for some time, with success. From this year on, the national park will be involved, says Klaus Melde. He points high into a steep wall. Two young bearded vultures will be released there at the beginning of June, newcomers from the Spanish breeding center Guadelentín in Andalusia. As highly specialized scavengers, they will not get in the way of the golden eagles. Adult bearded vultures feed primarily on bones, which they can digest thanks to their extremely acidic stomach acid.
Melde points up again, this time to the opposite mountain. In the glaring sunlight that floods into the valley over the Hochkalter, you can barely see the spot where the ranger is concerned. “Up there,” he says, “there was an avalanche in 1999.” 20 hectares of spruce forest – bent over in a matter of seconds. More than a dozen different tree species now grow there. “And this is how it would look here without people everywhere.” The fast-growing spruce trees were once reforested after the Klausbachtal was cleared to fuel the salt works of the Berchtesgaden salt mine.
Below, at the exit of the Klausbachtal, the consequences of a much larger, older avalanche are visible: the Hintersee, dammed up by a gigantic landslide more than 3000 years ago – and the magic forest, where the roots of mossy trees twist gnarled around the stately remnants of that rock avalanche . Another fairytale spot.
If you follow the Ramsauer Ache out of the enchanted forest, both downstream and eastwards, after a few kilometers you will come to a point where a cloudy gray brook flows into the Ache. Here, at the Wimbachbrücke, is a popular starting and ending point for crossing the Watzmann, one of the most beautiful, most difficult ridge hikes in the Alps, which requires a head for heights and surefootedness – and fitness for 14 hours, 23 kilometers and 2400 meters up and down again.
Three and a half hours after the start, located at 1930 meters, is the Watzmannhaus, an Alpine Club hut with a dining room and 200 beds. “Most of the people who cross the Watzmann spend the night here,” says Herbert Wendlinger, hiking guide and owner of a ski school. “And that’s one of the most sensible things.” Reason is a top priority at Wendlinger. In the valley, he always distributes hiking sticks to those taking part in his tours. And when he comes across a descender on the ascent who has turned around in front of the summit because of fresh snow, he gives him some consolation on the way: “I always say: There are brave mountaineers. And old climbers. But not old, brave mountaineers. “
For sensible people with not so much time or fitness, the Watzmannhaus is the turning point and highlight of a day tour with 1200 times more, sometimes less steep, but consistently creak-free vertical meters. Wendlinger repeatedly leads “pulse fitness tours” up to the house. Conceived 28 years ago by the heart specialist at a local clinic as a “cardiovascular hike” for spa guests, such a tour ensures that the hiker strives uphill in the optimal pulse range. “Rule of thumb: 180 minus age plus ten percent,” says Wendlinger. “Or more simply: as long as you can still talk on the mountain, everything is fine.” For decades, Wendlinger climbed 60,000 meters of altitude a year – “at least,” he says. Now, at 65, he treads a little less, but is still very good at walking. This becomes clear on the Watzmann pulse walk in the first steeper passage. Wendlinger just keeps talking.
After all these years on the mountain, stories and anecdotes like silver thistles and gentians lie by the wayside for him. If the Wimbachtal shows up between the treetops, Wendlinger explains the grayness of the Wimbach water: “That is the gravel that is washed away.” The “Gries”, in turn, is a scree stream that pushes its way down the valley, sometimes hundreds of meters thick; It has been calculated that around 4,500 tons are washed out of the valley every year. If a view opens up to the north, Wendlinger starts with an anatomical description of a mountain silhouette: “Toes, nose, in between the breasts.” And indeed, when instructed, you can see her lying on her back on the horizon, the legendary “sleeping witch”.
Up at the Watzmannhaus: take a breather. To measure ones pulse. Change the sweaty shirt. As soon as the rucksacks are opened, Wendlinger spots a second species of vulture in the national park, which as such cannot be found in any ornithology book: “Ah, the bread-time vulture!” A raven-black Alpine chough is already approaching for landing, fearless and cheeky, with the hiking group’s provisions in view.
After a snack and a summit schnapps, the descent follows. It leads across the Kührointalm, where a mountaineering memorial chapel reminds us how suddenly life can end. In the Watzmann east face alone, the third highest rock face in the Alps at 1,800 meters, more than 100 too brave mountaineers have died. It is not considered superhumanly steep, but miserably long and confusing. “Use the time”, is written on the chapel, “because the days are short.”
In order to be back in the valley before sunset on this day, Herbert Wendlinger and his hiking group do a brisk cattle drive. The soundtrack of the hike, from early morning to dusk, is a polyphonic “Servus!” And “Grias di!”, At times almost every minute, whenever groups meet or overtake each other. Hardly something going on on the mountain – and in the middle of the national park.
Is the nature reserve suffering from “overtourism”? Everyone has an opinion on this. More like yes, thinks ranger Klaus Melde. “They just call me a lifeguard!” He groans. In his 17 years at the National Park, he has never seen such a rush on the Königssee as in 2020. “I sincerely hope that Corona will soon be over. Then those who actually want to go on holiday at Ballermann can do that again. “
“Well,” says Brigitte Berreiter on the other hand. She gives tours of the “House of the Mountains”, the environmental education and information center of the national park. “We need even more interested tourists. Because the distance to nature creates problems. ”For nature. Because you show less consideration for what you haven’t learned to love. And Herbert Wendlinger knows that mass tourism was basically a midwife of the national park. The “crazy idea of a cable car up to the Watzmann” could not be killed for decades. “With the national park you could finally prevent that.”
Roland Baier, the head of the national park, not only keeps an eye on the Watzmann, but also the visitor numbers at his office on Doktorberg, a hill in Berchtesgaden’s old town: “The last official number is from 2015. 1.6 million. Compared to 2005 that was an increase of 40 percent. ”In the Corona year 2020, he says, it was“ felt even more ”. However, Baier does not see an overtourism problem “as long as the visitor is on the hiking trail”. With well-developed paths, 260 kilometers all in all, and accurate signage, the national park tries to direct the flow of tourists. That works in the vast majority of cases. But not in all of them. “If more people come, the proportion of those who misbehave also increases,” says Baier. “It’s like a Gaussian distribution.” And that becomes a problem after all. Garbage, noise, wild campers.
Watzmann and Königssee as hyped, tourist-laden natural clichés – that may get on some people’s nerves, but it is not an invention of the 21st century. Two centuries ago there was already a hype, sparked by the influencers of the time: “Caspar David Friedrich and the other landscape painters,” says Brigitte Berreiter from the House of Mountains, “were just as bled as the Instagrammers are today.”
On the other hand, hand on heart: who could you accuse of being enchanted by this alpine backdrop?
