Outdoor Ladies goes Grosse Schlicke 2019m – Bloggers Meet

What happens when 8 outdoor ladies meet up for a summit over the weekend? … A mountain full of giggles, colourful attire and plenty of good vibes! And if you think we went up there just for the usual coffee and cake thingy you are right. BUT we took along the summit too and Geo-cached our way through it all.

A bloggers Meet is a get-together between bloggers at a location of your choice. The goal is getting to know each other personally, an exchange of know hows, ideas and giggles included. Just like a Tupperware Party. The location can be held at a private house, a restaurant or a summit. We chose the summit! More exciting! More action! You can’t miss an Outdoor Blogger. You can spot them in a potpourri of red, blue, green attire, using word specific terms like Twitter, Gore-tex, breathability, technical and functional wear, or lightweight, mascara!, WordPress. You will catch them taking photos in every direction, all the time.  But not everyday would you find 8 cool Outdoor Ladies rocking the Alps in Allgäu over the weekend. And it was pretty awesome!

Twitter started rumbling with tweets based on the Hashtag #OLaBT the night before it started. An Ultra Light challenge even popped out of nowhere. I thought that I was the only one with the heaviest backpack. But Steffi showed us how real Ultra light should start:

Lesson learned!

Let’s go!

It was a fine Saturday morning. The weather forecast was good except for a possible thunderstorm or two – we had absolutely nothing to fear. 10 am at the parking lot as we exchanged the first greetings, before starting off in a cloud of colours towards our summit – the Große Schlicke at 2019m. 1300 m altitude altogether was planned for the day. 8 Outdoor blogger Ladies that consisted of Corinna from Outdoormädchen, Ute from Zwergamberg, Steffi from Gipfelglück, Nadine from KulturNatur, Karo from Linalüftig, Kathrin from Fräulein Draußen, Sonya from Sochy on Tour and myself. I was thrilled to see a few familiar faces and meet new ones. It’s funny how it goes when acquaintances develop over social networks and then turns into friendships along the way.

We reached the Musauer Alm after a few Geo cache logs. It was the first time I experienced Geo caching live and did my part in holding Corinna’s GPS device (for a few seconds) while the others searched for a well rated cache we never found. I guess we would have persisted if we didn’t still have the whole trip ahead of us. Shortly after the Musauer Alm, the trial lead us to the right, quickly gaining plenty of altitude, in a zick zag, steeper path through little bushes of mountain pine up to the next junction, just above the timberline . In the meantime, fog and dense clouds covered the view of the summit and surrounded us. We started putting on warmer clothing. The temperature dropped to 9 degrees as we reached the iron summit cross. There were no signs of the panoramic views promised, instead the fog left us with views no more than 20m away. At this moment, I realised what asset it was to have a bright colourful jacket to increase your chances of being found in any worse case scenarios.

We made a pretty long break at the summit with plenty of photo shootings, a round of fresh apricots(!), cereal bars, chocolates, dried fruits, mini cakes.No wonder everyone had a backpack heavier than I did! I must admit I actually forgot all about food in my packlist and brought only 4 of my self made cereal bars that disappeared faster than I had imagined. Water had the highest priority for me and I was glad that my new Source WLP Hydration Solution came into good use. With it I could sip water through the day without having to stop and take out the water bottle all the time.

I learned my lesson during my last years trip to the Berliner Hütte. Lugging a heavy backpack is no fun on long hike trips. I made sure I optimized all I could for this weekend tour. My sleeping inlet was exchanged from cotton into one out of silk and weighed only 250 g, my Keen Approach shoes replaced my heavy leather mountain boots, I invested in a Sony RX-100 II, compact camera that left my DSLR completely at home. All these made me lighter and increased my performance by 50%. If you have ever been a victim of herniated disk and meniscus failure, you’ll understand the importance of a lightweight backpack. I saved 3 kg all together.

Pyjama Party at the Otto-Mayr-Hütte, 1.530m

So from the summit we reached the charming Otto Mayr Hütte in the late afternoon. We rewarded ourselves with the typical girls coffee and cake round (actually it was more beer and cake) and got ourselves comfy in our rooms. Wow! Beds with blankets in sheets and  a pair of ear plugs on each pillow, incase you forgot to bring yours along.We were safe from the notorious snores! The washrooms were modern and clean,  a warm shower available. What amazed me most was how the lodge was decorated with many tiny details. It felt as if it was made just for us Ladies. Little flowers, wooden hearts and stones decorated each corner. The dining room was exclusively built with huge windows that viewed the massive summits of the Köllenspitze and Gimpel. It  gave warmth in the morning when the sun shone. The sundowner in the evening shaped the opposite massive with deep shadows and pink highlights. Everyone rushed out quickly to take a picture! We then spent the evening planning the next days tour with a few beers and a shooter. Mischievous Salva who was with us all this time took his chance when he was left alone…

Yes, we could become good friends, this Salva and me!

The next day

The morning sun and the rooster woke us up punctually at 6 am the next morning. That rooster acted like the alarm clock from the neighbour that wouldn’t stop ringing. How fortunate we were to have him housed under our window. How fortunate he was that he didn’t get a wringed neck later. We got ourselves ready for breakfast in the first rays of the morning sun and took off punctually at 8:15am merrily, almost like Snow white and the 7 dwarfs as we marched up the way to Sabachjoch.

The Sunday took us over diverse valleys and ridges. We were actually eyeing for a mount to the Gehrenspitz in the beginning  but decided against it. We chose the Sabachjoch (1860 m) instead and then crossed over to the Hahlealpe and descended towards the Frauensee and continued on the “Höhenweg” that seemed to bring us around in circles. 9 hours later we finally reached the parking lot. I stopped my Ambit and registered 19 km, 910 m altitude and 1373 m descends for the day! Though a tad tedious to the end, we did a good job keeping together and keeping our team spirits high.

Ladies, we’ll have to do this again!

More Photos, and stories can be found on the following websites (in german) about the weekend:

• Corinna from OutdoorMädchen Part 1 and Part 2
• Stefanie from Gipfel-Glück
• Nadine from Kultur-Natur
• Ute from Zwerg am Berg
• Kathrin from Fräulein-Draußen
• Sonya from SochyonTour