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Some pictures from today's mountain tour (foothills of the Bavarian Alps, close to my home) with my beloved ACM (1300Wh). Perfect weather, but very damp (a thunderstorm just passed the area) and 30-35 degrees. Hot, and the ground was wet and soggy everywhere. Basically an outdoor sauna.
The area is the same as usual, but some new exploring happened today.
Here we go...
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Map. Read clockwise. Start is at the top right where the pins are. The numbers are for reference.
The way south is up a creek valley, mostly in the forest. Some pictures along the way.
Stuff at 1.
Some occasional Alm meadows start here, at 2. You can see the nice mountain background scenery.
From the southmost corner of the route to point 3 it is steep uphills in serpentines. This is somewhere in that area. It always looks less steep in pictures than it is.
Point 3 is a fork at the top of that climb, you can go north along the mountain ridge at approximately the same altitude. To the West, it goes a little further uphills to an Alm at 4, which I decided to explore today.
Signs!
Further up! Mountain peaks in the background.
Here we are at 4, looking back. Until now, the route was mostly in the forest (and thus not directly in the sun, but also barely any views were to be had).
Alm begins. This is the entrance. Exciting, never been there before. Cow stopper.
There it is.
Dead end, road ends here.
View back. You can see, quite some altitude gained!
Nice meadow, fantastic views. This mountain is called Breitenstein.
I decided to go up there (the meadow, not the mountain), although I had to carry the ACM pretty much all the time. This and the sun burning down made the further ascent quite a sweaty endeavor. But the views were worth it.
Rock face!
Steep downhills on the sides.
Panorama from there. Sun was burning like crazy, so I fled to the forest at the foot of the rock face.
View. The meadow you can see on the top of the mountain in the distance is an Alm at 6. I did not know yet, but would end up there (and on the peak left of it, this is 7).
Shadow! A good place for a break.
No point in going further, not suitable for EUC riding. Carrying a wheel in this weather soon becomes old. Before anybody mentions the ACM has no trolley handle: that wouldn't have helped here anyways
One more look at the Alm I'd end up, and the valley below I'd descend to on the way.
Panoramas are awesome.
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So I turned around, carried the ACM back down the meadow (the photos there were actually made on the way back, but I put them first for storytelling purposes), rode back down to the junction at 3, and followed along the ridge til another junction at 5.
From there, I descended the mountain ridge on the side opposite to the creek valley I had come up earlier. Went down to the main road, followed that for a bit, did a little uphill detour that turned out to be a dead end, and finally went up again to that Alm meadow visible from afar.
You can see the route on the map (the detour to the left). It was through meadows and fantastic, idyllic village scenery. But due to the sun trying to fry everything, I never stopped for pictures, it was simply too hot and sunburn-inducing. Sorry, you have to use your imagination for this part of the ride
Only picture I got is from the ascent - quite steep (hard to see in pictures, but even there it looks steep).
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So I went up to this Alm (6 on the map), overtaking some sloooooow and heavily panting cyclists on the way, and decided to go up the nearby peak (it's called Schwarzenberg). I had to carry the ACM for 10 minutes, but I wanted some peak pictures with it (and also not leave my baby alone). Very exhausting. But I did a long break on the peak. Here's how it looked.
View back of the way up. The meadow between the trees in the middle of the picture is that earlier Alm (4 on the map). I love how you get a bird's eye view of your ride on such mountain routes. Around 8pm, shadows were getting long.
Biiiig summit cross, with some veteran memorial plaques.
Great views in all directions!
The valley below is the altitude I started at.
As always, a panorama gives the best impression.
Some more pictures from up top:
ACM gets to enjoy the view as well
View of the Alm meadow below the peak. I would actually cross it, surprising some cows (which you can see if you look closely), on the further route.
"Jesus, that's a big cross."
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Finally, some pictures from the Alm itself (6 on map). It was getting dark quite fast after the sun was down (9pm or so).
In the distance you can see the first Alm meadow (center of picture, in front of the rock face), the forested ridge that you could follow to end up here, and the meadow in the valley below - this is where I went down before ascending again.
The building. With an exhausted biker coming up. Thank God this can't happen with a EUC The meadow in the background (cows!) is how the route would continue. You can see the forest behind the meadow, and the rest of the ride would be through forest again.
Path to the peak I just came down from.
Finally, a panorama of the spot.
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It was now getting dark quite fast, phone battery was empty (had my phone tethered to the wheel since the peak), and the first part (unexplored route) down would turn out to be very exhausting - tree roots, mud holes, ruts, washouts, steep hill - so no photos. Imagine ride-carrying (aka 95% carrying) the ACM down through the forest for a km or so.
Here's a picture of the best part (the start), and of course it is twice as steep as it looks and would get much steeper, muddier, rut-tier and crazier later on. Well, EUC riding is no-exertion until you have to carry and then it isn't
But it was over after a while, I reached known and good dirt roads again, and descended down the hill further, to ultimately circle back to where I started. Arrived there at 9:45pm (started at 4 pm).
The end. It was hot but fun!
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Hope you enjoyed and I did not break your browser, explode your bandwidth bill, break the forum, or anything else, with this many pictures
Oh, water, that explains it. He did say he does not know why the fire happened... Were you there Marty? Sounds like it.
