I was certainly not happy with my 5:30 alarm after a late night the previous night due to watching sunset from the Jochberg after work, however we knew that the best of the weather was in the morning and due to heading to the Allgäu we had a longer than usual drive.
We had decided to continue to make the most of being allowed into Austria, as while the start, finish and peak were all in Germany, the last part of the ascent was firmly in Austria, and more importantly so was the pre summit Hütte.
The start of the walk was beautiful, and fairly relaxing as the lift station was not at the bottom of the steep ascent, so we enjoyed the warm up walking through the alpine meadows filled with spring flowers. However we were soon in the woods, and slogging up the ascent, which after the previous nights fast ascent of Jochberg certainly felt harder than it should have.
We enjoyed some food at a brief clearing before heading up the steep slopes towards the Bad Kissinger Hütte. We stopped for a well earned drink at the Hütte, as it was only 11 it felt a bit early for an actual beer, so I enjoyed a non alcoholic Weißbier. The views from the Hütte’s terrace were fantastic which meant it was a wonderful place to enjoy a drink.
From the Hütte it wasn’t too far to the summit and after a bit more ascent we arrived at the scramble to the summit, which was very straight ward and totally snow free. The summit was very crowded, however with some exposed scrambling I mangled to get to an area free of people to take some photos. We admired the magnificent view, had some food and watched some climbers topping out. Due to the large numbers of people and the visible build up of thundery clouds we didn’t stay on the summit very long before making our way back down.
It looks like there is lots of brilliant multi pitch climbing on the Aggenstein, so I am sure I will be back in the future for some climbing.
We had discussed adding on another peak, but due to the raindrops which had started to form we decided to head straight down. The descent down to the ski area was relatively snow free, with a few areas which slowed us down. Once we were down to the ski area we made excellent time back to the top of the gondola, and as the rain hadn’t started yet we stopped for lunch at the Hochalphütte at the Breitenbergbahn Bergstation, as we knew if the thunderstorm arrived we could get the lift down.
Thankfully the weather stayed dry, so we saved some money and completed the walk down to finish an excellent day out.
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