Top of the World

Taking Fun to New Heights

Zugspitze in Ehrwald, Austria

October 7th 2008

The highest mountain in Germany directly on the border between Austria and Germany and the districts of Bayern and Tirol.

There is a cog railway leading from the resort of Garmisch-Partenkirchen to the peak. There are also two cable cars that go to the peak from the base: one ascends from the German side of the mountain at the Eibsee and the other ascends from the Austrian town of Ehrwald. This is the one we took. It was a fast ride up and a bit nerve wracking.

Unfortunately it was a slightly overcast day, we went strait into the clouds and only got glimpses of what would have been an amazing view.

The peak is 9,718 feet high.

Next we thought we'd try our hand at a Sommerolderbahn.

The Lake District near Salzburg. October 8, 2008

I just got one picture of Jeff as I was right behind him but he video taped his ride down.

This was pretty fun, but we were now ready to graduate to the serious stuff. We actually found the longest run in Austria. The course is 1.34 miles long and the fastest way to reach your starting location is an almost 15 minute ride up the ski lift. I started to get a little nervous as we got higher and higher up. It was kind of like having a personal little rollercoaster. What a rush!

Bad Durrenburg, Austria

Jeff video taped our ascent up the mountain and then his trip down. You really can't tell just how fast we went from this video but it shows how beautiful the ride was and how crazy some of the turns were. At the end you can see me coming down and then I get a few seconds of Jeffs second trip down. These show better how fast we really went and this is at the end as we were slowing down. The video is a few minutes long but still fun to see.

(Having issues with the video download, I'll add later)

It was actually so high up that before we began our 2nd decent down the mountain we watched a guy set up his parachute and set off paragliding from where we started our ride! Jeff was so incredibly jealous. This is something he has really been wanting to try! It was amazing to watch.