Happy, the friendly frog

After Nilpferd had dug completely useless in the snow a few days ago (in fact the cache was clearly visible outside of the snowfield), he actually dug a cache out of the snow in the Chiemgau Mountains last Wednesday. Here the whole area was covered with snow and so the cache had to be under the snow.
Nilpferd dug busily for half an hour and then a broken container with a moldy logbook appeared.
But today in Tyrol everything was much better. Excellent weather and a great view to Mt. Zugspitze and a cache which was easy to find. On the south side of the mountains even at an altitude of 1500m above sea level there was no snow and we took a long break on a sunny meadow.

After three weeks, it's time to report what we've been doing over the last few weeks.
At the end of November, it was quite cold and there was beautiful powder snow, so we hiked through a moorland area in the Alpine foothills in perfect weather. When the ground is frozen, you don't sink into the swamp so easily. Very convenient!
Then, as we do every year, we went to the GC event at the Weilheim Christmas market, where we met old friends and drank delicious mulled wine.
And there was also our traditional hike at Advent, where we take a gas stove with us and make ourselves a hot lunch. Nilpferd had prepared a pumpkin soup with whiskey, which heated up quickly on the stove. My fear that all the alcohol would evaporate did not come true. There was enough of it in the soup that even after heating, there was still enough left.
And today we were once again in Tyrol at Lake Achensee.
Nilpferd was looking forward to dig a cache out of the snow again. But after digging unsuccessfully, we found the cache a few meters further on in a completely snow-free spot.

The idea behind this new multi-cache is to cycle about 70 km from Munich towards the mountains and collect during the trip 9 values, which have to be used to calculate the final coordinates on a mountain peak, which then requires another hike of about 2 hours.
It's a nice idea, but for us that would mean to cycle 30 km to Munich only to pass by Nilpferd's home again after another 30 km. And that in icy and cold conditions.

No, that really doesn't make sense, so we decided to look for the first two values with a virtual trip using Google Street View.
Using Excel and a topographical map, we quickly determined plausible coordinates for the next stages. Only the stage near Nilpferd's home we did visit by bike in light snowfall for a change.
The hike then led to a well-known summit and it was very nice to walk in the powder snow.
And thanks to good coordinates, the large box was quickly found in the snow.

In order not to spoil on which mountain we found the cache, today there is only one photo of us next to the container in the snow.

On Monday, the first snowflakes fell in Nilpferd's back garden, but nothing remained on the ground.
So today we decided to check out how things are looking at higher altitudes.
At the starting point of our hike there was already 1 cm of snow on the meadows, and at Mt. Stangeneck, at an altitude of 1646 m above sea level, there were 15 cm of powder snow.
And because the cable car to Mt. Brauneck is not running due to maintenance work, it was very quiet up there today.
The cache at the summit we had already found last year, but going there when there is fresh snow was a good idea.

Once again, we are in the Chiemgau Mountains for two days.
Mt. Rauschberg always was a crowded mountain due to its cable car, but the cable car ist out of order since 2022 and it should be replaced by a modern system. But then the operating company ran out of money and they declared insolvency. So it has become lonely up there.
The unmarked path was quite challenging, and shortly before the summit there was a cache at a lost place. It was the bottom station of a chairlift that was in operation between the 1960s and 1980s in the former ski resort. Through a hole in the roof, we could even take a look inside the building.It looked pretty messy in there.
On the second day, we climbed Mt. Gruberhörndl. Here, too, the ascent was challenging and steep. And we found several promising branches of the path that we will explore next time. Unfortunately we could not stay longer because Nilpferd had to go home for a visit at the dentist, but we will be back.