Watles and Pfaffenseen

Today we undertook a truly challenging tour to Watles.

We started with the chairlift above Kloster Marienberg, which took us from 1740 m to 2140 m.

Of course, you could also 'walk' this part, but we didn't want to overdo it.

The weather was at its best today, the trails were dry again and the sun was shining. From the mountain station, we took wide gravel paths to the Pfaffenseen, simply magnificent, like in a fairy tale!

By the way, they are called Pfaffenseen because the priests from Kloster Marienberg used to fish here.

Gorgeous views, the clouds were still hanging in the valley, sun with wonderful foliage at the top!

After the Pfaffenseen, we continued on small hiking trails, moderately ascending, past juniper bushes and cranberries.

We needed regular breaks, probably because of the high altitude (one might suspect that it might be due to our fitness...).

After about a third of the way, I secretly wished to turn around, it was already exhausting enough for one day. But luckily, I didn't say anything, Gerhard would have immediately turned back with me :-)

After half of the way, we reached a sharp turning point, straight ahead it went over a ridge to an alpine meadow, hmm, didn't we always want to go there? Unfortunately, we had to take the sharp turn, and it went steeply uphill! And that, without an end in sight. And these were supposed to be only 400 meters of altitude? We felt as if we had already climbed at least 1000 m. And now it became really uncomfortable, windy and cold... on top of everything. So we bundled up, put on our caps and hoods, and gloves. We continued uphill inch by inch until we reached the summit. There were not many hikers left, but we greeted each other nicely when we met in this unfriendly wilderness. After reaching the summit cross of Watles (2565 m), we were first glad that it finally goes downhill.

Spectacular 360° view!!

After a photo shoot with the summit cross, which only lasted the necessary time due to wind and temperature, we happily descended. Well, admittedly, steeply downhill... in a goose march, so to speak.

But it doesn't matter, the direction to the Plantapatschhütte motivated us. The temperatures became more pleasant again, and fortunately, the wind had more to do up at the summit. We arrived at the mountain station again after about 4 hours, feeling quite exhausted, and could easily have devoured half a pig on toast. But the homemade apple pie with vanilla sauce and whipped cream also reconciled us.

The view was magnificent! Sun, apple strudel, what's there to complain about tired bones...

Gerhard's saying: 'You can only do something like this while you're young!' As often, he's right :-) And off we went with the chairlift down to the valley. At this point, I already pitied everyone who had to walk downhill to the valley station for another 2 1/2 hours. Then we drove back down to Burgeis (at 1600 m) by car.

My tip: Tours marked in red in the hiking guide may only be moderately difficult for experienced mountain climbers. But for us flatlanders, it's already a challenge! And 400 meters of altitude feel like much more. But the effort was worth it! And tomorrow we'll recover in the sauna :-)

Greetings from South Tyrol to all of you!