Hochiss Hike&Fly

With the easing of travel restrictions we had a visitor, so I was keen to make the most of the first day of cool sunny weather as I was expecting that the views would be stunning. I had an idea to walk up a ridge to the final summit of the Achensee 5 Gipfel Klettersteig, as I thought that the views over Achensee and into the Karwendel would be wonderful. After planning the walk I noticed that there was a grassy area between the two summits, and after some googling I discovered that it was hike&fly summit. This meant that I could combine a nice walk with Win and Becky, with a flight back down to the valley.

We started relatively early as I wasn’t sure how busy it would be, this would have been fine but there was a significant amount of cloud which wasn’t in the weather forecast. So this meant we had a chilly walk away from the Rofanseilbahn, and then soon ascended into the cloud. Thankfully before we got to the end of the ridge the cloud started to clear and we had beautiful views into the Karwendel.

The route we chose was also pretty quiet, so it was nice to leave the crowds at the Bergstation and head off on the small path up to Rotspitz ridge. The ascent up to the ridge involved some scrambling so it was definitely the correct way around to do the ridge. As we were going along the ridge I was getting concerned that carrying my glider was pointless, and that my promise of a day with wonderful views wasn’t going to come to fruition. However as we were getting close to the Streichkopf the cloud suddenly started to lift, and treat us to some fantastic views.

As we walked up the Streichkopf and the ridge along to Hochiss, the views were absolutely brilliant with crisp clear air and wonderful views in every direction.

We had planned on doing the Klettersteig up to Hochiss, however with the cold we decided that it wouldn’t be that much fun. So we enjoyed some lunch between Hochiss and Streichkopf before heading up to Hochiss. I was a bit unsure at times in the walk up if I would be able to fly off due to the wind, but by choosing a location out of the venturi and timing my launch between the thermal wind cycles I was able to make an easy & safe forward launch.

I enjoyed a wonderful flight back down to Maurach, if I was better I would have been able to make the most of the autumnal thermals and stay up, lots of people were! After a good landing in the small and thermik landing area, I enjoyed a beer and watched other pilots approaching the landing.