Trip 43

September 13, 2023

Though it is mostly cloudy today, we decided to take the drive up to the Rossfeld Panoramasteaße, a scenic alpine road providing views of the Hohen Göll, the Kehlstein, the Tennen- and Dachstein Mountains, the Untersberg as well as over Berchtesgaden (Germany) and Salzburg (Austria). At the apex , the elevation is about 1600 meters (5250’). It is Germanys highest panoramic road.

Reaching the summit entailed driving an underpowered five speed up the mountain. It’s a good road, but in our car it meant remaining in 2nd gear nearly the entire way up to have enough torque to go up the road, which inclines at up to 13%. Naturally, driving up a mountain means driving a switchback route and though there were small villages along the way where the road flattened out, it climbs from an altitude of 572m in Berchtesgaden, to 850 m (in Oberau) and 750 m (in Obersalzberg) to 1600 meters; it was built between 1937 and 1940. The road is open year round, though we tried once before when we were in Berchtesgaden and the road was closed for snow.

To enter the Rossfeld Panoramastraße region , there’s a toll booth , which costs 9€ for cars. The road continues on up to the apex, where there’s parking for cars and buses and a small restaurant. There weren’t many people here today (Wednesday), in fact far more cows than people. The cattle graze along the slope near the restaurant, with an electric fence keeping them enclosed and the steep down slope at the top ensures they aren’t wandering off.

Walking through the electric gate and up the cow patty path, we reached the trail that goes along the summit, with a ski lift that operates in the winter, going down to Obersalzburg. If you know what you’re looking for, the views down show the intermediate levels where the Grand Kempenski hotel and the Dokumentation Center are located (which is the departure point for the Eagles Nest). We stayed at the (now) Kempinski a few times, years ago, once, when we visited the Dokumentation Center and Eagles Nest. The Dokumentation Center seems to be temporarily closed, reopening at the end of this month.

Down and across, if I zoomed in, there’s a small glacier nestled in across the valley below.

Use the iOS Peak Finder app, I can identify many of the names and elevations of the higher mountains surrounding us.

The cloudiness makes it a bit more difficult to align the outline of the mountain range in the app with the display.

There are few remaining summer flowers in bloom as we walk along the path from end to end, but the views are as stunning as ever. We passed a display showing some scenes from when the Sound of Music movie was filmed here in 1965, as the family von Trapp made their escape during WW2.

We started out from Berchtesgaden around 1pm and left Rossfeld around 3 pm, by which time the clouds had actually descended around us and it started to rain (not heavily). We sat in the parking lot for a bit watching the clouds blow across the road.

The road down didn’t require gears at all, just pushing in the clutch and braking as we wind our way back down (YouTube) to the valley.

Other trips to Berchtesgaden