The Allgäu Alps

The Allgäu Alps sit along the Austrian border west of the Lech valley and run to Lake Constance, split between Bavaria, a smaller part of Baden-Württemberg, and the Austrian states of Tyrol and Vorarlberg; the Bavarian share is a little over half the total area. The highest point, the Großer Krottenkopf at 2,656 metres, lies just across the border in Austria. On the German side, the highest summit on the main ridge is the Hochfrottspitze, at 2,649 metres. Much of the range is lower and gentler than those figures suggest: a distinctive local feature is the “grass mountain”, a peak whose upper slopes are turf rather than bare rock, on very steep flanks, demanding careful footwork rather than climbing equipment. The Höfats, at 2,258 metres, is the most striking of these grass mountains, with flanks the first full climbing report, in 1858, put at 70 to 80 degrees.

Oberstdorf

Oberstdorf, at 813 metres, is Germany’s southernmost municipality and the main base for walking in the range. The Nebelhornbahn cable car has run from the village since 1930, when its first section was, briefly, the longest cableway in the world; it still climbs to within a short walk of the Nebelhorn’s 2,224-metre summit. From Oberstdorf, trails fan out into side valleys on both sides of the border, most of them waymarked and maintained jointly by German and Austrian Alpine club sections.

Neuschwanstein and Lindau

The range’s eastern edge, in the Ostallgäu district, is where Ludwig II began building Neuschwanstein in 1869, never finished at his death; the castle stands on a rock spur above the village of Hohenschwangau, with the Allgäu’s hills as backdrop rather than subject. At the western end, Lindau occupies a small island in Lake Constance, just 0.68 square kilometres, connected to the shore by road and rail, and its harbourfront old town is a common start or finish point for a trip through the range.

Walking the Allgäu

What defines the Allgäu is the contrast between valley and ridge rather than between low and high, as elsewhere in the Alps. Dairy farming still shapes the lower ground: mountain huts known locally as Alpen serve cheese and cured meat along many of the main routes, a working tradition rather than a tourist add-on. Above them, grass gives way to rock only close to the summits, and the range’s most demanding routes, the ridge on the Höfats among them, are narrower and more exposed than their modest height suggests. Oberstdorf’s tourist office says the station sits beside the bus station, and the Bergsteigerbus runs from Oberstdorf up the Trettachtal to Spielmannsau.