{"id":6085,"date":"2020-11-20T15:30:00","date_gmt":"2020-11-20T15:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/relaunch2025.zeitenspiegel.de\/?post_type=projekte&p=6085"},"modified":"2025-12-14T12:01:30","modified_gmt":"2025-12-14T12:01:30","slug":"zauberberge-artikel","status":"publish","type":"projekte","link":"https:\/\/www.zeitenspiegel.de\/en\/projekte\/zauberberge\/zauberberge-artikel\/","title":{"rendered":"Magic Mountain \u2013 Article"},"content":{"rendered":"

Published in \u201eNature\u201c 12\/20
From the author\u00a0Markus Wanzeck<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our author drives to Berchtesgaden with great anticipation. And finds herself in a fairytale alpine world where witches slumber, wondrous things happen, and a stone king reigns above it all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The trip to the Alps begins in Altona. Here, at the Hamburg starting and ending station, the IC 2083, known as \u201eIC K\u00f6nigssee,\u201c starts its journey daily. Its duration? It could have come from an Indian timetable: around ten hours, with no changes. 29 stops. The final one: the town of Berchtesgaden, at the foot of two of the last resting places of \u201eeternal ice\u201c on German soil. Watzmann Glacier. Blaueis Glacier. Once lengthwise across the country, from the shores of the Elbe, that extended arm of the North Sea with its tides, to the very deepest southeastern tip of the Republic, which juts out like a peninsula into Austria.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Out in the morning dew, climbing the mountain! At 7:10 AM, the IC K\u00f6nigssee rolls in, chugging through a dim brick landscape. A few cranes on the horizon of houses \u2013 the harbor. The speed is reminiscent of an S-Bahn ride, as are the first stops: Hamburg-Dammtor, Hamburg-Hauptbahnhof, Hamburg-Harburg. The train fills up. Behind Harburg, the S-Bahn trip turns into a railway journey. L\u00fcneburg, G\u00f6ttingen, Fulda\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More than nine hours after its departure in the high, flat north, the IC K\u00f6nigssee begins its ascent on a 7.4-kilometer stretch that ranks among the steepest railway lines in Europe: 7.4 kilometers, over 230 meters of elevation gain, with gradients of up to 40 per mille. It feels like a mountain railway. The train chugs along, now at S-Bahn speed again, through forests, past meadows, between rock faces, climbing, climbing, always higher, into a mountain world that seems soulful and alive, where witches slumber, an enchanted forest grows, and above it all, a stone king watches.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201eKing,\u201c they call the Watzmann here, whose summit towers 2713 meters high \u2013 surpassed in this country only by the Zugspitze. Shortly before the end of the day's train journey, it thrones in the sky above Bischofswiesen in the late afternoon sun. King Watzmann looks out over a landscape like a painting, a world like in a fairy tale. Once upon a time: a realm of majestically towering rock faces and idyllic alpine pastures, enchanted corners and deep valleys, where legends have survived for centuries and wondrous natural phenomena occur to this day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

where in some places the temperature drops as if by magic within a few meters \u2013 ten degrees, 20 degrees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Where streams dry up before they reach the lake \u2013 and yet flow into it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Where snowfields, as if detached from the course of the seasons, survive the summer \u2013 2000 meters below the snow line.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What if it were truly a fairytale world? What if the golden eagle, circling high above the peaks of Halskopf and Teufelskopf on a late summer October morning, could speak? Would it joyfully tell us about the bright sunshine and the great thermals that invited it to hunt after two gray rainy days? Or would it complain about the miserable year in which the 15 eagle pairs observed by the Berchtesgaden National Park could only successfully raise a single young bird?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Would he be surprised by the group of hikers down in the Klausbach valley, who excitedly raise their arms skyward again and again whenever he glides over the ridge and the little humans down there spot his silhouette?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And again. He: sails over into the valley. She: throws her arms up. \u201eI can't work like this,\u201c grumbles a man from the group with shoulder-length hair and a ten-day beard, \u201ewhen I'm always interrupted during my presentation by this beast!\u2019 Of course, Klaus Melde, a ranger in the national park, doesn't mean it seriously. He's happy when the subject of his presentation actually shows itself to the participants of the eagle hike. It doesn't happen at all, but today Melde had made himself reasonably hopeful. Because of the two rainy days before. \u201cThe eagle probably just sat around then. It's not stupid.\u201e Today, hunger has driven him into the sky.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ranger Melde is one of about 100 employees of Berchtesgaden National Park, founded in 1978, covering 210 square kilometers, it is Germany's second-oldest and only alpine national park. Characterized by three valleys that nestle together, stretching north-south: Klausbachtal to the west, where eagles circle overhead. In the middle is Wimbachtal, flanked by Hochkalter and Watzmann, whose peaks already wear winter white in early October. And at the foot of the Watzmann East Face is the valley flooded by K\u00f6nigssee \u2013 steep, narrow, like an alpine fjord.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That 2020 was a terrible year for eagles, the worst it's been in over 25 years of monitoring, is due to the coldest, wettest June in decades, explains Melde: \u201eWetness or a cold snap can kill a young eagle.\u201c All in all, however, the population is stable. The conditions in the national park are ideal for the rare golden eagle. The updrafts. The steep cliffs, perfect for rock eyries. The abundant food supply. \u201eHere you can swoop down on rabbits, marmots, and young chamois to your heart's content,\u201c the eagle would whisper contentedly from the sky, if it could speak.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps, while he's at it, he'll also express his astonishment at that impressive, even rarer occasional visitor that occasionally drifts into the Klausbachtal and, with its wingspan of a good two and a half meters, even outshines him, the king of the skies. For some time now, the bearded vulture has been successfully resettled in the Alps. As of 2021, the national park will also participate, says Klaus Melde. He points high up a steep wall. \u201eThat's where we want to release two to three young birds in the spring.\u201c As passionate, highly specialized scavengers, they won't interfere with the native golden eagles. Adult bearded vultures primarily feed on bones, which they can digest thanks to their extremely acidic stomach acid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once again, Melde points upwards, this time at the opposite mountain. In the blinding sunlight flooding the valley over the Hochkalter, the spot the ranger is looking for can barely be seen. \u201eUp there,\u201c he says, \u201ean avalanche came down in 1999.\u201c 20 hectares of spruce forest \u2013 snapped in moments. Now, more than a dozen different tree species are growing there. \u201eAnd this is what it would look like everywhere without humans.\u201c The fast-growing spruces were once reforested after the Klausbachtal was cleared to fuel the saltworks of the Berchtesgaden salt mine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Down below, at the exit of the Klausbachtal valley, the consequences of a much larger, older avalanche are visible: the Hintersee lake, dammed up by a gigantic rockslide more than 3000 years ago \u2013 and the Zauberwald forest, where the gnarled roots of moss-covered trees twine around the imposing remnants of that rock avalanche. Another such fairytale spot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Following the Ramsauer Ache downstream out of the Magic Forest, always downstream and eastward, you reach a spot after a few kilometers where a murky gray stream flows into the Ache. Here, by the Wimbach Bridge, is a popular starting and ending point for the Watzmann Traverse, one of the most beautiful and difficult ridge hikes in the Alps, demanding a head for heights and sure-footedness \u2013 and stamina for 14 hours, 23 kilometers, and 2400 meters of elevation gain and loss.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Three and a half hours after setting off, situated at an altitude of 1930 meters, the Watzmannhaus awaits \u2013 an Alpine Club hut with a guest lounge and 200 sleeping places. \u201eMost people who cross the Watzmann stay overnight here,\u201c says Herbert Wendlinger, a hiking guide and ski school owner. \u201eAnd that's the most sensible thing to do.\u201c<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wendlinger attaches great importance to common sense. In the valley, he always hands out hiking poles to the participants on his tours. And if he comes across a descender on the ascent who has turned back before the summit because of fresh snow, he gives him a word of comfort: \u201eI always say: there are brave mountaineers. And old mountaineers. But not old, courageous mountaineers.\u201c<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For sensible hikers with not too much time or stamina, the Watzmannhaus offers itself as the turning point and highlight of a day trip with 1200 meters of altitude gain, more or less steep, but entirely free of scrambling. Wendlinger repeatedly leads \u201ePulse Fitness Tours\u201c up to the hut. Conceived 28 years ago by a cardiac specialist at a local clinic as a \u201eCardiovascular Hike\u201c for spa guests, such a tour ensures that the hiker strives uphill within the optimal pulse range. \u201eRule of thumb: 180 minus age plus ten percent,\u201c says Wendlinger. \u201eOr simpler: As long as you can still talk on the mountain, everything is fine.\u201c<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For decades, Wendlinger accumulated 60,000 vertical meters per year \u2013 \u201eat least,\u201c he says. Now, at 65, he's taking it a bit easier, but he's still very much on his feet. This becomes clear on the last Watzmann pulse hike before the winter break, even in the first steeper section. Wendlinger just keeps talking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After all these years in the mountains, stories and anecdotes lie by the wayside for him like silver thistles and gentians. When the Wimbach Valley appears between the treetops, Wendlinger explains the grayness of the Wimbach water: \u201eThat's the scree being washed away.\u201c The \u201escree\u201c in turn is a rockfall that, in places hundreds of meters thick, pushes its way down the valley; around 4,500 tons, it has been calculated, are washed out of the valley each year. When a wide view opens to the north, Wendlinger begins an anatomical description of a mountain silhouette: \u201eToes, nose, breasts in between.\u201c And indeed, guided in this way, you see her lying on her back on the horizon, the legendary \u201esleeping witch.\u201c.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the top of the Watzmannhaus: take a breather. Take your pulse. Change the sweaty shirt. No sooner have the hikers\u201e rucksacks been opened than Wendlinger spots a second species of vulture in the national park that cannot be found as such in any ornithology book: \u201cAh, the snack vulture!\" he calls out. A jet-black alpine chough is already approaching, fearless and cheeky, with its eyes on the hikers' provisions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After a snack and a summit schnapps, the descent follows. It leads via the K\u00fchrointalm, where a memorial chapel for mountaineers reminds us how suddenly a life can end. In the Watzmann East Face alone, the third highest rock face in the Alps at 1,800 meters, more than 100 overly courageous climbers have lost their lives. It is not considered to be superhumanly steep, but it is miserably long and confusing. The last helicopter rescue flight was less than a week before Wendlinger's hike. \u201eMake the most of the time,\u201c is written on the chapel, \u201efor the days are short.\u201c<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To be back in the valley before sunset on this short October day, Herbert Wendlinger and his hiking group are making brisk progress with their descent from the alp. The soundtrack of the hike, from early morning until dusk, is a multi-voice \u201eServus!\u201c and \u201eGrias di!\u201c, almost at minute intervals at times, whenever groups meet or overtake each other. A lot going on on the mountain \u2013 and right in the middle of the national park.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is the nature reserve suffering from \u201eovertourism\u201c? Everyone here has an opinion on that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More yes, finds ranger Klaus Melde. \u201eThey just call me the lifeguard now!\u201c he groans. He has never experienced such a rush to K\u00f6nigssee in his 17 years in the national park. \u201eI sincerely hope that Corona will be over soon. Then those who actually want to vacation at Ballermann can do so again.\u201c<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201eNo,\u201c says Brigitte Berreiter, on the other hand. She gives tours at the \u201eHaus der Berge,\u201c the nature park's environmental education and information center. \u201eWe need even more interested tourists. Because distance from nature creates problems.\u201c For nature. Because you're less considerate of what you haven't learned to love. But also for people: \u201eEven sitting on a bench in nature for ten minutes does you good. Hormones are released.\u201c<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And Herbert Wendlinger knows that mass tourism was essentially an enabler of the national park. The \u201ecrazy idea of a cable car up the Watzmann\u201c couldn't be killed off for decades. \u201eWith the national park, it was finally possible to prevent that.\u201c<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Roland Baier, the park director, keeps an eye not only on the Watzmann from his office on Doktorberg, a hill in the old town of Berchtesgaden, but also on visitor numbers: \u201eThe last official figure is from 2015. 1.6 million. That was a 40 percent increase compared to 2005.\u201c In the Corona year 2020, he says, it was \u201efelt to be even more.\u201c.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Baier, however, does not see an overtourism problem, \u201eas long as visitors stay on the hiking trails.\u201c With well-maintained paths, 260 kilometers in total, and accurate signage, the national park attempts to manage tourist flows. This works in most cases. But not all. \u201eAs more people come, the proportion of those who misbehave increases as well,\u201c says Baier. \u201eIt's like a Gaussian distribution.\u201c And that does become a problem. Litter, noise, illegal campers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Currently, the biggest problem area in the park is the K\u00f6nigsbach Waterfall. From its upper pools, before the water plunges into the depths, you have a picture-perfect view of K\u00f6nigssee. Ideal for social media self-portraits. Consequently, the waterfall went viral in recent years, becoming a cool backdrop for more and more Facebook and Instagram selfies. Even the deaths of two men, who were swallowed by the white-bubbling, low-buoyancy water of the stream in 2019, did little to change that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201eAround the waterfall, three kilometers of footpaths have been created,\u201c says Baier. Damage to vegetation, erosion damage. The area will be broadly cordoned off next spring, Baier announces. \u201eSigns and barriers will be put up. And then we'll have to monitor it.\u201c<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Watzmann and K\u00f6nigssee as hyped, touristy nature clich\u00e9s - this may get on some people's nerves, but it is not an invention of the 21st century. There was already a hype two centuries earlier, sparked by the influencers of the time: \u201eCaspar David Friedrich and the other landscape painters,\u201c says Brigitte Berreiter from Haus der Berge, \u201ewere just as bled as the Instagrammers today.\u201c<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the other hand, hand on heart: Who could you blame for being enchanted by this Alpine scenery? Again and again, day after day, you can watch tourists with their mouths agape.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When you hike through the Wimbachklamm, between moss-covered rock walls, intoxicated by the thundering roar of the stream, by the peaceful glittering of the water spray in the backlight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When you sail across K\u00f6nigssee and the boatman stops to play a melody on his flugelhorn \u2013 in duet with the Brentenwand, which plays back a crystal-clear echo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When the boat finally set them down on the Hirschau peninsula, next to the pilgrimage chapel of St. Bartholom\u00e4 with its little red onion domes, and they look up at the east face of the Watzmann.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When avalanches come down the wall in winter, national park ranger Monika Lenz, who regularly guides visitor groups on the peninsula, always has to marvel. \u201eIt echoes between the walls and you can hear it for miles \u2013 as if it were right next door.\u201c<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Strictly speaking, the entire Hirschau peninsula is avalanche land, formed from the scree of the east face. A good hour's hike from the shore of K\u00f6nigssee, you'll find the Ice Chapel, a curious natural structure, with your mouth open! It's a kind of mini-glacier. At only 930 meters above sea level, it shouldn't really exist. But the Watzmann deposits so much snow on it that even a long, warm summer can't wear it down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From the railroad tunnel-sized vaulted gateway of the snowfield, which gave the \u201eIce Chapel\u201c its name, the Eisbach (Ice Stream) gushes forth. During heavy rain or snowmelt, it washes debris from the wall to the shore of the lake. On other days, it dries up in its streambed \u2013 and reaches the K\u00f6nigssee underground. \u201eSometimes,\u201c says park ranger Monika Lenz, \"an edelweiss even blooms by the stream.\" This flower, too, shouldn't really exist down here. Like the Ice Chapel, it was commanded down from its high-alpine climate comfort zone by King Watzmann.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those seeking the harshest high-alpine climate zone that the Berchtesgaden mountains have to offer will find it four (partially steep) hours up and south of St. Bartholom\u00e4, up at the Funtensee. There, at 1601 meters, it is sometimes 20 degrees colder in winter than at the K\u00e4rlingerhaus, which is only about 30 meters higher. Sounds unlikely. It has to do with the extraordinary topography. The lake lies in a basin into which cold air flows down from the surrounding mountain slopes. At Christmas 2001, Germany's lowest temperature was measured here: minus 45.9 degrees Celsius.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is also a small distillery hut at the Funtensee. Approximately every seven years, root diggers from the Enzianbrennerei Grassl come up to hack up the roots of Yellow Gentian and purple Pannonian Gentian from the surrounding slopes, up to 30 kilograms per person per day. In the hut, they are chopped, mashed, and distilled twice by the mountain distiller. \u201eIf you wonder why the Grassl is fumbling around there...,\u201c says National Park Ranger Lenz: \u201eHe's allowed to.\u201c<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why is Grassl allowed to do that? The gentian distillery has a mobile distilling license. \u201eThat,\u201c explains Karsten Brust, who has been with Grassl for 32 years, \u201ewas granted to us by the Princely Abbey of Berchtesgaden in 1692. That's how long the gentian distillery has existed. The National Park has only been around for about 40 years.\u201c Three Grassl stills are located within the national park boundaries. They have found a way to coexist, partly because the gentians have years to recover.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When you do business with time horizons like the gentian distillery, you can't help but notice when things change in the mountains within just a decade. \u201eAround 2010, our gentians were still at 1000 meters,\u201c says Brust. \u201eToday, we have to dig at altitudes between 1200 and 2000 meters.\u201c<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The era of the Berchtesgaden fairytale mountain world, as it presents itself to us today, is coming to an end. Roland Baier knows this too. \u201eThe temperature increase due to climate change is twice as high in the Alps as in the lowlands,\u201c explains the national park director. \u201eThe species communities are shifting. And our glaciers, the Watzmann Glacier, the Blaueis Glacier...\u201c Baier trails off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This leaves room for a concluding sentence worthy of a fairy tale: If they haven't melted, then they are still alive today.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Erschienen in „Natur“ 12\/20Von Autor\u00a0Markus Wanzeck Unser Autor f\u00e4hrt mit viel Anlauf nach Berchtesgaden. Und findet sich in einer m\u00e4rchenhaften Alpenwelt wieder, in der Hexen schlummern, wunderliche Dinge geschehen und \u00fcber allem ein steinerner K\u00f6nig thront. Der Ausflug in die Alpen nimmt seinen Anfang in Altona. Hier, im Hamburger Start- und Endbahnhof, beginnt t\u00e4glich der […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"parent":2581,"menu_order":0,"template":"","meta":{"_FSMCFIC_featured_image_caption":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_nocaption":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_hide":"","footnotes":""},"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6085","projekte","type-projekte","status-publish","hentry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zeitenspiegel.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/projekte\/6085","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zeitenspiegel.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/projekte"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zeitenspiegel.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/projekte"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.zeitenspiegel.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/projekte\/6085\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7014,"href":"https:\/\/www.zeitenspiegel.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/projekte\/6085\/revisions\/7014"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zeitenspiegel.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/projekte\/2581"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zeitenspiegel.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6085"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zeitenspiegel.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6085"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}