Austria trip
For this year's holiday, we spent one day in Šumava (the Bohemian Forest) and the next day in Germany, hiking up to the Eagle's Nest. On the third day we went to the Five Fingers, and I actually didn't even go looking for the story of that little chapel — on the way back I put on a podcast about mountain tragedies and, purely by chance, stumbled onto this exact story. And the tragedy behind the chapel really stayed with me. The Heilbronn Chapel on the Dachstein Krippenstein is a memorial to a disaster from Easter 1954, when 13 people — 10 pupils and 3 teachers from Heilbronn, Germany — died in a sudden, brutal snowstorm high on the Dachstein massif. They set out despite the worsening weather, and workers along the trail warned them to turn back, but they carried on; the group lost their way in the storm and, exhausted and freezing, all thirteen perished. It became one of the largest rescue operations in Alpine history, with over 400 mountain rescuers involved, and the first victims weren't found until Easter Tuesday. Today the site is marked by the small chapel — along with the simple wooden Heilbronn Cross by the trail — standing as a quiet reminder that the mountains must never be underestimated. And on the last day, we just relaxed by the little lakes. Happy to share the route — highly recommend it! :)