Bad Tölz: Rechelkopf west trail mtb - Sept 20

2 minute read

We had very good weather on Friday-Saturday this week if we compare the previous days. The visibility was great, we were able to see Karwendel on the way down to Prealps. Rechelkopf is one of the closest peaks from Munich with very nice views. We hiked to Rechelkopf the last winter. The hike is a short one, to do almost in any weather.

We parked in Greiling where the road access ends. There are few spots to park. It was empty in the early morning. We started slowly, warming up our bodies but we soon enough were looking at the road sign: 22%. Not something we want to see that early after the start. Our first thoughts were like we did not have enough 2 weeks ago where we were pushing our bikes often. This time the ascent was better as we cycled to the point where the double track forest road became a singletrack, no pushing or carrying our bike so far. We put our bikes on our shoulders and we were walking up until the crossing with Rechelkopf hiking path (the one that most hikers use and we will use as well for our descent).

Once we were on the hikers path, we continued to the top on foot. We were lucky to have such great weather that day. Karwendel peaks were visible. There is a sign on the top, the meadow to the east is forbidden for cyclists. As the note states, someone in 2018 scared the herd and that caused the owners to close it for mtb.

The first part of the descend contains drops, man-made stairs (some S2 parts). As this is also the main hiking path, there are always some hikers going up. The trail later becomes wider and easier (S1). There is a turn on the right to the forest (steeper section with many roots) and we got back again to the forest road. Once we got lower, more and more gates blocked our descent - the least entertaining part for us. Note, there are many of gates in the second part of the trail. Their placement is often right after stairs or some steeper sections where you just end up in front of the gate. Not everyone might like this trail because of this. Or is there any other alternative?

We got to the point where it is a warning sign about a steep descent (Not forbidden, just a warning about not being suitable for bikers). This is probably the best section of the trail. There are steep parts with a lot of roots and few bigger drops. We wanted to cycle back and go down via the north trail. We eventually decided to keep the other trail for another time. We descended down to the valley and we followed the cyclist road back to the start.