Kochelsee & Walchensee

R & I went hiking around the town of Kochel am See with 4 other friends today. Located about 60km south of Munich it is a picturesque town surrounded by several mountains (known as "voralps" or Pre-Alps) and home to two lakes - the Kochelsee & Walchensee. We left around 9:30am and after a 45 minute drive reached the parking lot of the Herzogstand gondola ride at Walchensee. Considering that one of friends had a knee injury, we decided to take the gondola up the mountain. After a brief stop at the restaurant to refill our bodies with some fuel, we proceeded to do the 45 minute hike up Mt. Herzogstand.

See the hut on the top?


View on the hike up
While the hike up was very scenic by itself , the panaromic view from the top of the 1700m high mountain was quite breathtaking. One could see the Kochelsee on one side of the mountains and the Walchensee on the other side. One thing I am beginning to realize in my stay in Europe is that the camera does not do any justice to the natural beauty of the place. It is just a teaser of what the location has to offer!

Walchensee


Kochelsee

To the left you can see the Heimgarten. Herzogstand & Heimgarten are seprated by approximately 5kms. There is a hiking trail between the two but certain parts of the trail are supposed to be very narrow with steep drops on either side. Unfortunately we were not able to try it out today but I hope to do it sometime in the near future. I have heard the view from Heimgarten is well worth the hike.

The trail between Herzogstand & Heimgarten


A close-up of the trail, do you see the people?