Hiking Oberstaufen

View to east from Oberstaufen condo after the only snow day -- and a light one, at that.

Four Hikes in Oberstaufen

1. Dec. 19: From Condo to heart of Oberstaufen, a year-round health resort community perhaps 2 kilometers, along a cross-country paved trail that ran through open space, and past neighborhoods, across the road and onto a footbridge over the freeway. Oberstaufen elevation: 2,604 feet.
2. Dec 20: A free hiking outing sponsored by the time share for five guests (four German) across country, partly on paved trail and party in forest.  We drove to the "trailhead," which was located in a parking lot near a church, then followed the Christel-Cranz Trail to the Cafe Auwinkel at the ski resort in Steibis. It was an easy walk of 1.5 hours. One of our companions, Allan, said it was 10,000 steps, which would be the equivalent of 20-25,000 feet, or safely  3.78 miles or 6 km.
3. Dec. 21: Shopping trip to Oberstaufen for provisions and holiday gifts. Walked around the town. 2 kilometers.
4. Dec 22: Second sponsored hiking outing with same group. We traveled through forest and open grazing lands, past moors and again through forest to reach Austrian border, where we had patries at a viewpoint overlooking the valley between our resort and the adjacent mountain range. By my calculations, based on speed and time, we easily traveled 5 miles, or 8 km

So, for the four days we hiked at least 18 km with an elevation gain of at least 500 feet.

The elevation of Mount Hochgrat, viewable from my condo, exceeds 6,000 feet.

View to the north; the westward path into the town began where the driveway met the highway.

View of Mount Hochgrath on the first hike to Oberstaufen

The path to Oberstaufen shortly before noon on an overcast morning

The path crossed the highway and looped onto this footbridge that led into the city proper.

Cobblestones, meticulously arranged, glistened with snow runoff.

Left; a cat drank from a trough. Right: St Peter and Paul Church is a navigation landmark.

View into the valley below the condo during an afternoon hike following the shopping trip

On the second hosted hike we crossed land that had been lake, moor, peat, then solid ground.

At the border of Austria we traveled a trough created by excavation of peat.

The sign at the Germany-Austria border. There was no customs man waiting.

This is a cartoon character that acknowledges smuggling in past years.

On an overlook of the valley below, there was information on the cross-border nature park.

Accumulated distance for 2016: 456.987 km
Accumulated elevation gain: 60,356 feet