Your Alpine Climbing tip #2421: Try a Museum and a Library!

OK, this is supposed to be the largest collection of alpine/mountaineering literature in the world. A huge library with nothing, but climbing books and magazines. We’re in Munich, Germany. Here’s a little recording from inside the museum, which was, well, …later on that…

Now these are some nifty gaiters, aren’t they? Notice how gaiters haven’t changed all that much in terms of technology and innovation.

Here’s a picture from the museum of an alpine refuge being built. Awesome! What you may be able to make out here is the helicopter carrying up a huge pre-built, two-story wall for the extension of the mountain hut…

The Nazis back in the 30s and 40s were pretty big on mountaineering. They even had expeditions to Nanga Parbat. Here’s relics from one of their successful climbs of [tag-tec]Mt. Elbrus[/tag-tec].

The Germans run a bunch of refuges in the Austrian Alps. We climb Grossglockner and Grossvenediger regularly, where the mountian huts are usually DAV (German) run. Here’s a maquette of the hut that Germans are most proud of: Stüdlhütte, under Grossglockner. It was rebuilt in 2004.

All in all, I wasn’t very impressed with the museum. It was kinda dull and the presentation lacked any creativity. In addition, a bunch of stuff on display was very similar to my grandpa’s mountaineering stuff that I had the chance to see several times, so it wasn’t all that special. The library, however – that was a completely different story.

Despite the fact that it was closed, I had the chance to drool over like 50 English and German climbing periodicals and was able to get a peek in their catalogue.

Unfortunately, we had to leave Munich so I didn’t get a chance to go inside the museum, which is open only Thursdays. But, you can get a glimpse of their catalogue here and some additional info on the library right here. It’s all in German, baby!

Long live the Alps, long live mountain culture!