The World is My Oyster!

On one particular day during a trip to Germany, I took a ferry across the Konigssee lake to a peninsula in the water! The lake has beautiful, green water that can be seen straight through to the bottom and is surrounded by the Bavarian Alps. Our boat's tour guide opened the door once and played a trumpet, and it echoed forever off of the mountains! It was a foggy day, but still gorgeous. St. Bartholoma's chapel was on the peninsula where we landed, and its red, Roman domes contrasted very nicely with the natural surroundings!

In the mountains around the peninsula, there is an ice chapel, a dome of ice that never melts. We only had a couple hours at this stop, and I really wanted to go see the ice chapel, so I left my bags with people who didn't want to go and recruited two of my travel companions to go with me! We didn't have enough time to walk all the way up there and back before the boat was supposed to leave, so we set off running up the mountain! It felt so nice! It was still snowy all around, even in the Spring. At some places, there were paths carved out of the snow which were just wide enough for one person to set a foot down.

We came upon a sign on our way up to the chapel that said, "Attention, the maintained trail ends here! The path leading to a viewpoint in front of the ice chapel requires a sure step and sturdy shoes." Next, we came across a sign that said, "Attention! The marked path ends here! You are now in an unsecured alpine area with danger of avalanches and rock falls. Refrain from entering the snowfields. Mortal danger!" But what do we do? Keep going, of course! After walking for a while after that sign, we stopped to take some pictures. All of a sudden, we heard a CRACK that sounded like an avalanche to us. We didn't say a word but made intense eye contact with each other for a split second before turning around and running full speed in the other direction, back down the mountain! My shoes had no traction, so I kept slipping and sliding all the way down the mountain, and we didn't stop until we were almost all the way back to the lake! I still have no idea whether or not it was actually an avalanche or just our minds playing tricks on us, but it sure was scary! It is a lot of fun too look back on that moment, though! We didn't make it to the ice chapel, but it was an experience I'll never forget!