2009-06-07 47 10

Location

The hash is located on the Eibsee, a rather large mountain lake within of the Zugspitz mountain range, just below the highest peak in Germany.

Links:

Webcam (the one called "Zugspitzgipfel - Blickrichtung Norden zum Eibsee", which means "Zugspitze peak - Looking north to the Eibsee")
Eibsee - English wikipedia (basically no information)
German wikipedia (good information)
Eibsee leisure centre - owner of the lake
Boat rental

Plans

The planning phase for this great expedition gained a lot of momentum and deserves its own page. Do not fear, nothing is lost; it is preserved in all of its greatness over at the other page.

Expedition report

Before the party of 9 partied

From Würzburg to München (Danatar, Srs0, Thepiguy)

Early.

With difficulty Danatar got up at 4:30 after 2 hours of sleep, but he nonetheless managed to meet thepiguy who was already waiting at the train station at 5:15. On the train Danatar tried to get some sleep, but the train seats are very uncomfortable to lie on so he didn't succeed. After 2 hours they arrived at Treuchtlingen and changed into a double decker train. From the upper floor the sight is slightly better than in a normal train and they could watch the beautiful landscape. They even saw 2 deer. At 9:30 the train arrived at München main station where ekorren was waiting for them directly at their platform.

thepiguy says...

Possibly my favourite expedition yet! I hope the pictures from the underwater camera turn out...

The crew from Regensburg (dawidi, Hans, Tomcat)

... who also came from quite far away.

All the way from Tübingen: Ekorren

... who even came from another state (BaWü)

It was a short night - if you can call that a night. More like almost no sleeping at all, as I was busy discussing, researching, preparing until deep into the night, and had to get up as early as 3 am. Left house a few minutes past four, and arrived at the station not really in time to go to an ATM first, or buy a ticket from a machine that accepts cards (they actually are slower). Luckily, I still had a prepaid Baden-Württemberg-Ticket, so I could just jump on the train and write the date into the right field.

Now, at Plochingen I changed to train for Ulm, to get the Unavoidable Public Transport Speed Racer Multihash first.

After having accomplished the task to not miss its tracks and thus also not miss the hash, the train went in for Ulm. I still needed to buy a Bayern-Ticket, so I took a short visit out of the station and found that the machines at the tramway station would sell me one that is both a good extension for my collection and payable with card, so saving me to find an ATM for the rest of the day, bought the ticket and caught a train to Augsburg and then to München. Shortly after my train arrived, Danatar and thepiguy should arrive from Würzburg, so I picked them up at their platform. We then found the others in the northers section of the station.

Two fellows from München (Baerenfell, zb)

... who almost appear to be couch potatoes, considering how far everyone else has traveled.

Baerenfell says...

Awesome Expedition with a lot of really nice and funny guys, nearly perfect weather and last, but not least a really cool spot. Also being one of the first to do an underwater geohash rules :) (proof to follow with full report).

And now I can put my hands on a huge lot of ribbons, YEEHAA!

Started the day with a final look at the planning page at about 9 am, packed my stuff and was on my way. The school I had to vote at, was just a few meters from home, so I stopped by and went did my civil duty (Claiming a "Democracy Geohash" for this). After that I cycled on to the Central Station to meet the others, which wasn't really complicated (everyone would recognize such a cool group | 2. Achievment today | Meet-up | all 8 ).

zb says...

First things first:

I know I sound like a hippie who has smoked his brains out when I say that this trip made me feel truly happy not only because the nature looked so nice, but -- even better -- because it was very fun to meet everyone else after having done a number of geohashes myself and even failed to meet dawidi once.

Koepfel, after today, your meetup graph will be in serious trouble if not completely FUBARed, but it's worth it because spending this great day with a group as nice and diverse was a big win. I mean it.

On to the report:

A preview of what was to be seen later this day.

I left the house around 8:30am and took a small detour to a nearby school house because it was election day for the European Parliament and the school is where I go to vote. A ribbon has even been suggested for this. While the school house itself was just as ugly as any German school house built in the seventies, it featured a nice painting next to one of its doors that must have been an indication about what was bound to happen later this day. See gallery below.

I stopped at a bakery in my neighborhood and rode my bike to the train station, where Srs0 had just arrived some minutes ago on his ICE train. When asking him, somewhat reluctantly, if he was, like, maybe on his way to, like, Garmisch, and stuff, he answered that yes, he was, so we introduced ourselves. He actually wasn't that hard to find because his right arm was of landmark quality with the cast he was wearing and he had an xkcd t-shirt. Despite the warning on the t-shirt, I hadn't stood back and he was nice enough to not try SCIENCE. We found another bakery and got him breakfast, including a Auszogne (meaning a one pulled apart) which is something like a Bavarian equivalent to a donut. Slightly later, everyone else showed up at the train station.

Some friends of mine were there, too, but they went on another train to another beautiful place in the mountains to celebrate a birthday. (Happy birthday, A.!)

From München to Eibsee

Some, like zb, were introduced to the hobby of geocaching by others, like Ekorren while we had time to kill until our train left.

The internet is over there.

Shortly after, we went along the very scenic tracks near Starnberger See, changed onto a bus in Tutzing because the electric wires above the train tracks were in the progress of being repaired further down the railroad line, making regular train traffic impossible. We decided to sit in the back of the bus, because we remembered from back when we were still using school buses that the back is where the cool people sit. We again got onto a train in Weilheim that took us to Garmisch-Partenkirchen. From the bus, we saw some very shiny new copper wires that had already been put up and, more importantly, some famous satellite dishes that were even shinier.

When you claim that you come from the internet, this exact village of dishes is indeed your hometown.

In Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Ekorren was quick to negotiate our possibilities and fares for going up to Eibsee on the really cool train, the Zugspitzbahn. It has to be said that the lady at the ticket counter was very helpful towards our group that must have seemed unusual, even by standards set at places where many tourists and groups of crazy school kids travel through.

The reasons why the Zugspitzbahn is really cool are: (a) It has tracks narrower than regular trains, (b) some parts of the tracks are so steep that it needs racks in addition to the rails. Thus, it has all the technology necessary to (c) take you up to the very top of Germany's highest mountain, the name of which is proudly featured on the display on the side of the train. Cool, eh?

The group is all set for our trip up the mountain!

(d) The train also makes for a really great backdrop for a group picture, as is evidenced in the picture here and in the gallery below.

While we went uphill to Eibsee, thepiguy got serious about his plans to swim in the Eibsee. Everyone could tell because he produced diving equipment from his backpack. We kept telling him that the water would be really really cold. Our guess was < 10°C, which was wrong, as we would see shortly after.

He just kept saying that now was not the time to think about cold water. The time to think about cold water was not before he would actually be in the air, after jumping off the boat, right before impact, when it would already be too late anyway. He was seriously committed.

At/On/In the lake

After having walked to the lake, we were offered a full choice of different vessels for rent. This is the part where we left the solid ground and went to find the water geohash. This is also where we all thank thepiguy for paying for the three boats we took out onto the lake: Thank you, pi!

While we had expected the water temperature to be very, very cold, a sign next to the boat rental shed said it was warmer than expected: 17°C.

Two pedal boats and one row boat went to the spot that numerous GPS devices were pointing at. When the coordinates were reached, many different things were done to appropriately celebrate the success:

Calendar Girls!

Three humans and Murray the hashcot went swimming.

The three humans even went under water.

And they posed for a Calendar Girl Achievement.

Because the panic of a human body immersed in cold water causes some shouting, we heard amazing echoes from our location on the lake. Allegedly, one sound produced on the lake causes as many as seven echoes, but this is a detail we were not able to reproduce.

After we were back on the land, a walk was done on the South shore, along a smaller lake (Frillensee), overlooking the geohash location and leading to another geocache. Just in case we have not mentioned yet: The area was extremely beautiful.

We bought hashcards, went to a beer garden, walked to the bus stop, mailed the hashcards, stuffed a phone box and started our journey home.

From Eibsee to München

We were really, really lucking out with the weather. Thunder and rain didn't really start before we were in the bus and already on the way home.

Besides, it's always amazing how different the way back feels compared to the way to some place.

After the party of 9 parted

The internet was here. Already, before we were, and ever since the fifties!

From München to Würzburg

When the train arrived at München, thepiguy and srs0 got out first and ran to catch an ICE train which left three minutes later. (...)

From München, Danatar had two trains to choose from to get home: One at 20:25 which would arrive at Würzburg at 0:06 and one at 21:09 which would arrive at 0:56. He had already decided earlier to visit his displaced origin hashpoint in this graticule and that would take all the time until the second option, so he said goodbye to everyone and went to buy a Döner. Then he went on his displaced origin expedition (read here).

Danatar returned from his displaced origin and boarded the train towards home. At Nürnberg he had to wait almost one hour to change his train. The big rock festival Rock im Park had taken place this weekend and Danatar could pass the time watching drunk and tired people moving around zombie-like in the station. When his train finally left the seats next to him were filled with people in a good temper, so Danatar couldn't even get some sleep. His train arrived in Würzburg a few minutes late, shortly after 1 am.

München, by bike, in the rain

Baerenfell: Left the others at the station in Munich to take the bike home (about 15 minutes). It started raining after a few meters and pouring after a few more. I didn't see much anymore and got totally drenched, but finally finished this great day with another look at the geohashing page. zb, while taking a slightly different route home, also got seriously drenched.

From München to Tübingen

There isn't much to tell. After the group mostly parted, only the Regensburg people and me were left, and also left was some time. So I picked another geocache description of a cache that was supposed to be about 400 m from the station, and we set off to search for that one. Without success, this time. As I see now, the cache has been successlessly searched by other people during the last few days, so it is probably lost. Also, we got hit by heavy rain during the search.

Since it was now late enough that there was only one connection left for me, I went back the same way I had been coming, via Augsburg, Ulm and Plochingen. The train from Ulm was a bit late, which resulted in an upgrade of the unavoidable multihash so that it now also was a Speed Racer geohash. Surprisingly, after a sprint through all of the station, I still caught the RE at Plochingen and reached Tübingen at 0:25. Usually, if the train from Ulm is late (which it usually is), you have to wait for the next train to Tübingen. Which goes only a few minutes later, anyway.

Gallery

(Notes moved to talk page)

From Würzburg to München (thepiguy, Danatar, srs0)

thepiguy and Danatar started early
Zugspitze ("train front end") at Würzburg
Zugspitze at Treuchtlingen

From Tübingen to München (ekorren)

Early start at Tübingen
Changing train at Ulm
The right one to Augsburg
Arriving at München - now looking for the group.

München, doing democracy before the hash (zb)

Vote here.
An ode to the seventies.
Mountains! Sunshine! Water! When you see something like this in the morning, on a building like the one in the previous picture, the day ought to be good.

From München to the lake

Some hashers on the replacement bus
Early glance on the Alps, ca. 11:18 near Oberhausen
Many clouds in the mountains that we were heading to, but the weather was constantly getting better.
Huge satellite dishes in Raisting, as seen from the SEV bus. In this type of scenery, they couldn't look more alien.
View from the train, somewhere between Weilheim and Murnau
Danatar struggles to explain where he is and what he's doing there
Another view from train, ca. 11:36 near Buchenried
The Zugspitze as seen from Garmisch-Partenkirchen
Garmisch-Partenkirchen, BZB station
The group is amazed by technology from the late 1920s. This is also where the Olympic Winter Games of 1936 took place and were put into a crazy political context.
The railway's rack on display.
POSTED: This train really goes all the way up.
The picture on pi's camera has it all.
Station of Grainau from a train drivers view
dawidi and Hans.
thepiguy's backpack. We are not supposed to panic. He is from the internet and he does not fear. He fears cold water least.
Rack railway line
Rack railway line

At/On/In and around the lake

Pedal boats. Pedal boats with slides. Row boats (not in this picture). What more does a waterhasher's desperate soul want?
Preparing for the waterhash
Baerenfell, srs0, thepiguy and Danatar on their boat. The building of the water rescue folks is closed, so better be careful...
Dawidi takes pictues, Hans and Tomcat apply maximum thrust.
The group from Würzburg right in front of the Zugspitze. The mountain hides its top in clouds.
The top of the Zugspitze. It was barely visible through the clouds just twice, for a very short time.
Panorama from the hashpoint
Some East-bound planes were still in the process of climbing to their cruise altitude while over the lake. Maybe Zürich departures?
Forward we move!
Two of our boats as seen from the third
Two of our boats as seen from another third
Vessel no. lucky 13 closing in on the coordinates.
thepiguy is getting ready for his cannonball into the lake, while srs0 is getting ready to capture the moment of impact.
That face is priceless, isn't it?
While a water temperature of 17 °C is a two-digit number, it's still not big enough to make you feel really comfortable when you're in.
Panic!
This was when we discovered the echo on the lake.
Danatar rocks the first underwater geohash!
Baerenfell and thepiguy weren't far behind!
We are being watched!
They are being watched, too.
Comfortable boat with motor: THEM. Fun Vessels: US.
Baerenfell and thepiguy show signs of pleasure and exhaustion, respectively.
Murray also joined in the fun!
You must stay away from the shore with these boats. Perfect for waterhashes.
Calendar Girls 1.
Calendar Girls 2.
Calendar Girls 3. They look cutest in this picture, eh?
Up, as seen from the lake.
Down, as seen from the lake.
Landscape impression from the boat
Clouds over the lake
If you look close, the cumulus cloud has some lenticular parts on the left, indicating turbulence (and being a hint to the storm that happened later).
Dark island
Light island
Small island (Steinbühl)
Dawidi and the DNF
Plant on Braxeninsel island
Neighbouring Frillensee lake
Frillensee closeup
View from the shore
Walking along the shore
This is where the hashcards were bought.
This looks like fun, too. Too bad it was not really open.
Ducks next to the Biergarten
srs0 is forced to drink a Radler...
...and so is thepiguy (Danatar is drinking voluntarily)
Hashcard writing: "Look Ma, no hands!"
thepiguy and zb relaxing
Zomg! Crowded phone booth!

Back

Bus back to Garmisch-Partenkirchen
It looks like the internet has been in Garmisch-Partenkirchen ever since the fifties! We can be glad that Garmisch is in neighboring 47 11, otherwise the virgin graticule achievement would have been very questionable. Garmisch pwns!
The storm is forming. Picture taken from the comfort of a bus seat.
Garmisch-Partenkirchen station - now the rain finally found us
Double rainbow as seen from the train
In Munich the rain really found me