Sea of stone

The Ingolstadt hut on the Steinernes Meer

Rocky scenery

Mountain flora

Forest fungi

The Eiskapelle (ice chapel)

Last weekend I took Friday off work for a long weekend hiking in one of my favourite areas, the Berchtesgaden Alpine National Park. I started with  ferry trip across beautiful lake Königssee, then hiked up a steep trail to the Steinernes Meer, a high rocky plateau which roughly translates as the sea of stone. The sun shone, showing up the wonderful rocky scenery as well as the flowers which thrive in the barren terrain at around 2000m altitude. The only noise was the loud mating calls of the rutting red deer in the forests on the way up and the whistling of marmots higher up. The picture shows the hut I stayed in at 2100m. Saturday was cloudy, but that made it quite atmospheric for my hike up the Grosser Hundstod mountain. On the way back down I passed through forests with interesting fungi, and took a detour to visit the Eiskapelle (ice chapel), a permanent snow cave formed by a stream flowing down under a snowfield which gets topped up every winter.
Mike