Nature gives, nature takes away...

After the past 10 days were mostly warm and sunny here in Burghausen I thought that the snow situation in the mountains might have cleared up a little and drove to Inzell to visit "my" beloved Frillensee, the small mountain lake with the crystal clear cyan/blue/green water that is embedded into an alpine forest under the so called "Dunklwand" (dark wall), which is the north side below the peaks of Gamsknogel and Zwiesel, two peaks of the Stauffen group.

But there is still a LOT of snow in the area (and from the sheer amount there I'd say that it will be gone not sooner than mid or end of May) and the path to the lake is partly still covered with lots of old snow, but I went there nevertheless - it was sunny and Toni had a lot of fun, but when I arrived at the lake I stood in shock as I saw this scene:


Frillensee - Wasteland

An avalanche came down over the Dunklwand and destroyed a good part of the south shore of the lake that lies underneath it. The path that went around the lake is completely gone, buried under snow, the leftovers of trees and dirt. The lake is still covered with a crust of ice and old snow, and a lot of small twigs are spread all across the surface (I don't know if that's due to the power of the avalanche - its really hard for me to imagine). The above photo was taken with a focal length of 70mm.

Just for your comparison... what you see above is almost the same scene as in this photo (taken with a 50mm lens):


Weird light (half of the lake is already in the shade of the mountains above)

Hard to believe. The forest, the path, everything is gone. It used to be my favorite place to take photos of the lake, with the forest that descends on both sides and the sky reflecting in the water. Now there is a chaos of snow, dirt and splintered trees.

Its one thing to see an avalanche on TV and watch it with some kind of morbid fascination when it makes its way down - but its a completely different experience to stand in the remainders of this beautiful landscape, knowing that it will take 20 years or more before the scene above will be as beautiful again as it used to be last autumn.

But that's nature. These things happen. And nature will recover.