The town of Mittenwald didn’t charm me the way that Rothenburg did but the surrounding area was amazing! Nestled in a small valley at the foot of the Appalachians, this town is rife with outdoor exploration opportunities. Our train held a number of mountain bikers (at least a dozen) as well as hikers eager to explore the countryside.
Hitting the trails
This was our first hiking opportunity on the trip and the region does an excellent job marking the trails. At main trail entrances there is a large map showing your location, the surrounding trails, and nearby cities. Trails are numbered rather than named and they’re color colored as to their difficulty.
We briefly considered hiking to Austria but all the trails near us were red. Think “red you’re dead” at least as far as my fitness level is concerned. The trails on Karwendel mountain even had black trails. The map for those described them as “difficult mountain trails that are narrow, often steep and include a risk of falling. You must be steady on your feet and have a head for heights for these trails.” My head is willing but my feet don’t always cooperate.
Signage
At the beginning of the trail and at each trail intersection, there are yellow signs posted pointing to the next destination of that particular trail. The signs list the trail number, difficulty level, and expected time to the destination.
An extra sign was temporarily added to one of the permanent yellow ones. Unfortunately we found this at the end and not the beginning of our adventure. Oops.
The trails themselves aren’t overly well marked – on each trail we would only see one or two placards with the trail number. This really didn’t matter though because the trails were well maintained and marked at all intersections.
All of this is impressive in its own right but becomes more so when you consider that we were not in a state or national park! I’m in awe that everything was so well maintained without central oversight. On our various train rides we’ve also seen evidence of similar trails and sign-age through out Germany and Austria. These are obviously countries that highly value their trail systems.
