Magic mountain

  That “up here” is a place Zwinger guards like a treasure and has long since shared with many others. The Zugspitze has become a huge visitor magnet, these days drawing up to 5000 tourists a day, that’s over half a million a year. More and more now come from Arab and Asian countries, eager to see with their own eyes what is touted to them at home as “Top of Germany.” And of course, they all have a personal quest, at the very least for the ideal selfie, but also for happiness, memories, a souvenir, perhaps even transcendence. They all want to take something home with them when they leave. But what remains on the mountain?

The Zugspitze preserves other peaks from the tourist hordes – maybe that is its purpose

Mountain climbers come in search of boundless freedom close to heaven. There is more such freedom to be had on the Zugspitze, 2962.06 meters above sea level, than anywhere else in Germany. In fine weather, you can see all the way to Italy in the south, and to the north, far beyond Munich, roughly 400 other Alpine peaks. By early afternoon, though, that freedom is greatly restricted by a recorded announcement that the valley-bound cable car is overloaded and you are requested to wait patiently – often even up to two hours. Then crowds gather, stepping on each others’ toes and sweating despite the cold, while the next tourist group walks across their selfies. “The Zugspitze is the most popular tourist mountain anywhere in the Alps,” says Thomas Bucher of the German Alpine Club (DAV) with no trace of regret. He is fine with this summit of summits no longer being a natural mountaintop but rather concreted over with an agglomeration of buildings. Only the golden summit cross still stands alone. “Everything is focused on the Zugspitze, which means that other mountains are spared,” says Bucher. This sounds terribly pragmatic. Where’s the romance? How do people affect the Zugspitze? And how does it affect us?

  Without the mountain, there would be no work for the people in the valley, he says. With it, they are able not only to provide hospitality for mountaineers and amateur climbers, but for all the medical tourists who come to Garmisch- Partenkirchen for check-ups and treatment. Thoma would prefer the development of this built-up mountain to continue. “We have so many other fantastic peaks around here that hardly a tourist has heard of – and it can stay that way, I’d say.” So Thoma and the Alpine Club agree.

The new Zugspitze cable car follows the same route as the old Eibsee cable car and was built over a period of three years while the old cogwheel train clattered alongside it to the top. Martin Hurm enjoys the ride, most of it inside a tunnel, which means his cell phone has no signal and remains silent. Hurm is the project manager for the new cable car, and he has spent a lot of time on its construction since 2011. “Now I’m getting a 50-million-euro gift for Christmas,” he says. “Except that I first had to build it. No one warned me about that.” Weather, altitude and logistics were the biggest challenges. A crane, lifted to the summit by helicopter, automatically became the highest crane in the country. Paradoxically, Hurm can recite the capacities of the new cable car, but at the end of the conversation, he says, “We don’t want to bring endless hordes up here or build skyscrapers. We want to offer our guests a modern experience.”

But of course, the hordes are already here. And their experience begins when the cogwheel train lumbers out of the tunnel and they reflexively whip out their smartphones and point them in every direction. The Zugspitze experience goes like this: Standing at the bottom, looking up, all you see is rock; brutal, rugged and gray, possibly with a hint of white at the top. There’s no call from this mountain! Not at the bottom. And if there is, it’s this: “Go away, people, leave me in peace, you have no business being here!” But once you’re at the top, looking down, you realize that you don’t climb a mountain to reach the top – not this mountain, anyway, or at least not only to reach the top. You climb it so that you can look down on your own life, which suddenly lies small and uncomplicated at your feet. Zugspitze signifies clarity. It conveys clarity. It can do that. Still. Despite the teeming crowd. And so this mountain does call, but from the top. Freedom, it calls. But make sure you wear the right shoes.

Franco Lopez, a Mexican in shorts stands at the summit with his Polish girlfriend, Barbara Yankowiak, whose flimsy sneakers are soaking wet. “We didn’t know it snowed up here,” she says. “We’re here because we heard how beautiful it was,” he adds. Mexico has taller mountains, of course, but no cable cars to take you up. Many tourists say similar things. They are impressed by the mountain, but almost more so by the way the Germans have conquered it. A man from Japan takes a selfie with a snowman. Middle Eastern women, their heads covered, laugh as they slip and slide on the white powder. Madness becomes normality at 47 degrees north, 10 degrees east, on the roof of Germany.

  But when will the development peak and when will the peak’s development end? And when will the mountain finally call for help? So many questions. You feel like taking Anselm off the wood-paneled wall of the Münchner Haus, giving him a good shake, meeting his unwavering gaze and asking him what he makes of all of this. “Raised up to Heaven’s lofty halls, Anselm’s heart rejoiced, and preoccupied with the glorious sight, he quite forgot to return that night” – Anselm’s poem continues. The venerable Zugspitz father has attained the boundless freedom of Heaven. Good for him.