Burgberger Hörnle (Aurikelgrat) + Grünten

I was looking for something to do on the road from Munich back to Zürich and my eye fell on the Aurikelgrat onto the Burgberger Hörnle. This short grade II scramble seemed like a good way to start the 2016 hiking season. The Burgberger Hörnle is a secondary summit of the Grünten, which (as an outlier of the Allgäu Alps) offers a spectacular panorama.

 

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I park the car at Alpe Weiherle, which costs 2.5 euros per day. In fact there are also a few free parking spots in between Alpe Weiherle and Gasthaus Alpenblick a little higher up the road.

 

A path climbs up from the parking lot. A little later, it joins a wider forest road. Around the 1150m contour, a path turns left across a deforested slope (signpost, though not pointing in the direction of this path). This is the Funkenweg (T3), which climbs directly onto the Burgberger Hörnle. I follow the Funkenweg for quite a while, until I realise that I have already passed the turn-off for the Aurikelgrat some time ago. Correct would have been to turn right around the 1200m contour onto a vague trail (T4, sometimes hard to follow because there are a lot of broken conifer branches covering the ground). This trail passes below an eye-catching dihedral and into a grassy gully, with ridges on either side of the gully. The ridge on the right hand side is the south ridge, a grade IV climbing route. The ridge on the left (starting at the top of the before-mentioned dihedral) is Aurikel ridge.

 

The Aurikel ridge (II) offers some pleasant scrambling on excellent rock. It could serve as a good introduction into UIAA grade II scrambling for people who are already confident on easier scrambling routes, since the harder bits are not too exposed or can be avoided. All too soon, the ridge tops out and joins the Funkenweg again. From here, I soon reach the busy summit of the Burgberger Hörnle.

 

I descend using the normal route along the north-east ridge. The first section is protected by cables and looks spectacular on photos, but is in fact not so difficult, at least in dry conditions (T3). A little further down, I have snow under my feet for the first time today; a little extra care is needed here. There are more snow fields going up towards the Grüntenhaus and the Grünten Gipfelhaus (with antenna and discontinued cable car), but these don't pose a significant obstacle.

 

The conditions become more challenging on the Grünten summit ridge, between Gipfelhaus and Jägerdenkmal. The path traverses a steep and exposed snow field on the north side of the main antenna. People are using this trail in trainers and without special equipment, but to me this looks like an accident waiting to happen. Though it's unlikely that anybody would slip here, if you do, the result would not be pretty. In the end (since I didn't bring an ice axe myself either) I avoid this risk by climbing onto the ridge and passing (slightly illegally) directly by the antenna. The terrain here is also steep and exposed in a places, but at least the ground is mostly dry, hence the risk becomes more manageable for me.

 

Passing the World War I monument on the highest point of the Grünten, there is one more risky traverse over snow, which can again be avoided by keeping to the ridge and down-climbing back onto the path (I). There is a surprising amount of snow left on the south-east face of the Grünten, but the terrain is not so steep any more, so I can just run down the slopes. Some gaiters would have been useful, though. I roughly follow the summer path that goes past the Zweifelgehren Alpe and then further down to Gasthaus Alpenblick, where I treat myself to a tasty ice cream.

 

(Note: the 900m of ascent for this route does not include my navigation error on the Funkenweg.)