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 on page: 2009-06-07 47 10/Plans

Do not fear, it's preserved in all of its greatness over at the other page. --Zb 18:40, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Expedition reports

... will follow here, along with tons of pictures. --Zb 18:49, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

The crew from Würzburg (Danatar, Srs0, Thepiguy)

... who got up very, very early.

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)

Two fellows from München (Baerenfell, zb)

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

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 f***ing 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 ).

here ends the "being alone" part

more to come....

here begins the "being alone" part

still more to come

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:

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:

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.

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. 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, except it doesn't have baking soda in it and therefore doesn't leave you with a strange taste hours after you ate it. 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.!)

I was introduced to the hobby of geocashing as well, I'm sure you find out about it in Ekorren's strories.

The train left, 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, and again got onto a train in Weilheim that took us to Garmisch-Partenkirchen.

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.

In Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Ekorren was quick to negotiate our possibilities and fares for going up to Eibsee on the really cool train, the Zugspitzbahn. The reasons why the Zugspitzbahn is really cool are: (a) It has tracks narrower than regular trains and (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 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 train also makes for a (d) really great backdrop for a group picture, but this is on thepiguy's camera. I only have this to offer:

The picture on pi's camera has it all.

While we went uphill to Eibsee, thepiguy got serious about his plans to swim in the Eibsee, as you can see by looking at his backpack. When we got there, we were offered a full choice of different vessels:

dawidi and Hans.
thepiguy's backpack. We are not supposed to panic. He is from the internet and he does not fear.
Pedal boats. Pedal boats with slides. Row boats (not in this picture).

This is the part where we left the solid ground and went to find the water geohash.

... More will still follow here. Must sleep now. May take some hours or even days until it's ready...

Gratuitous comments

... started coming in while the expedition was still in the planning phase and may now be found at the talk page.