Happy, the friendly frog

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.

There is no trail marked on any map leading to the summit of the 2007 meter high Mt. Hochunnütz in the Rofan Mountains. 22 years ago, Nilpferd already tried to reach the summit, but he always got stuck in the mountain pines.
Now there is a cache up there and the listing contains a reference point and a description how to reach the summit.
So today it was very easy to get to the top.
We started down in the valley with temperatures below the freezing point, but at the summit it was warm like summer, despite of some remaining snow.

We are back in Bavaria. We spent exactly eight weeks traveling through Scandinavia in Nilpferd's camper van.
We used 13 ferries and I stopped counting the tunnels we drove through when I reached 100 and we travelled about 8,800 kilometres.

So we are hiking in the Alps again. We had already taken the narrow path along Lake Sylvenstein a few years ago, but the cache that had been hidden on this route for a few weeks was the motivation to do this beautiful hike again in a slightly modified variation.

On our way home we are now in Denmark and stayed the night close to the old lighthouse Rubjerg Knude.
The information board at the lighthouse gave us the following explanation:

"The lighthouse was built in 1900 on the highest point of the coastal cliff 70 meters above sea level an about 200 meters inland. There were no large dunes around it. But over time, the coastal cliff eroded and the sea came closer. This released large amounts of sand, which was blown up from the cliff by the wind. The sand settled in front and around the lighthouse.
Eventually, the sand dune was so tall that it was impossible to see the lighthouse beacon from the see."

Therefore the lighthouse was moved 70 meters inland and today it only serves as a lookout tower for tourists.
We visited this place during a very strong storm. That's why there's no photo of me. High risk of TBs flying away!