Climbing the Zugspitze via the "Eisenzeit", July 2017. The route follows the traces which are left from when the cog railway tunnel up the Zugspitze was built. From the railway stop at the tunnel entrance, the beginning of the route is just slightly up the mountain; a part natural and part artificial path with rusty (and not trustworthy) steel wires leads up to the fourth and uppermost tunnel window. The path is very tight and often exposed, leading right through the steep north wall of the Zugspitze. Besides an old steel sixpack for beer bottles lots of tools can be found along the way.
At the (securely closed) railroad tunnel opening additional tunnels for storage and shelter have been built in the early 1930s. From here a new climbing route (up to grade UIAA 4) leads up to the Höllental via ferrata. With barely any bolts, most parts have to be overcome without belay - the extremely brittle rock and the continuous exposedness makes this more of a psychological than a technical task.

After a night on top, we continued on the Jubilee Ridge. However, the weather looked sort of bad so we played it safe and descended via the Brunntal ridge to the Knorr hut. From there we walked back to Garmisch-Partenkirchen through the long Rein valley, following the Partnach river from its origin to the Partnach gorge.