Wolfratshausen: Alpine hiking tour for donations for “citizens for citizens” – Bad Tölz-Wolfratshausen
Anyone who is likely to undertake eight-hour hikes as an ambitious mountain hiker will probably consider events such as the mega march to be a little crazy. To do this, the participants have to cover the 100-kilometer route from Munich to Mittenwald in no more than 24 hours. Ina Großmann-Stangl has already successfully mastered this mega march twice and simply finds it “meditative” to be on the road for so long. Walking and taking step after step repeats itself over and over again. Meanwhile, the landscape passes you by. “You lose all sense of time”, Exact Großmann-Stangl, how much she dies. This gave rise to the idea of a fourteen-day stage tour with her friend, Bianca Bauer, from Innsbruck to Jesolo. They both want to use it to collect donations for the Wolfratshausen association “Citizens for Citizens”.
The two women, who were born in 1975, have been involved in the neighborhood help organization in the rafting town since 2003. For Bianca Bauer, however, far too little is known about what the club is committed to. The members of “Bürger für Bürger” then got involved in everything from helping the elderly to parent-child groups, the children’s things bazaar to finding babysitters. The fundraiser should help to make all this better known, says Bauer. “No one knows exactly what the club is doing.”
Bauer and Großmann-Stangl started the two-week stage tour on Thursday. To do this, Eva-Maria Rühling, chairwoman of “Citizens for Citizens”, took them both by car from Wolfratshausen to Innsbruck. The starting point of the hike over 350 kilometers and 8000 meters in altitude should be the Golden Roof in the center of the Tyrolean capital. At the end of each day, Bauer and Großmann-Stangl plan on the website created especially for this purpose www.biwalkin.de to report and post photos and videos. In addition, they each want to imagine a different department on each stage. “It’s a really great story,” says club chairman Rühling. The idea for this became concrete last spring.
In order to finance its various commitments, the neighborhood aid “Citizens for Citizens” relies on donations. According to Rühling, the demand cannot be covered with the membership fees alone. She is all the more pleased that some companies and self-employed people as well as private individuals have already supported the campaign with donations. The more, the better, of course, according to Rühling.
If you want to be on the road for two weeks through the Alps to the Italian Adriatic, you have to plan it very carefully. Bauer and Großmann-Stangl have therefore created lists of shopping facilities, from supermarkets to pharmacies and petrol stations. It was important to think carefully about what to put in the hiking backpack. For example, at least two pairs of socks are essential. Because if one is wet with sweat, every hiker should change it immediately. Otherwise imminent blisters. The backpack from Großmann-Stangl weighs around 11.5 kilograms without drinks, but including long pants and a T-shirt, as she says on the day before the second tour start. Her friend’s is almost two kilograms heavier.
Großmann-Stangl speaks of an “Alpine crossing without a summit”. Because you and Bauer are primarily concerned with arriving at the sea. The maximum yield of meters in altitude is not central. “8000 meters of altitude is also enough.” Both want to look for free accommodation after each stage. And if that doesn’t work out, they have a tent with them if necessary.
Surely many are wondering how someone would hike such long distances. In 2019, Großmann-Stangl read on social media how hikers with headlamps were out and about near Wolfratshausen. They found out it was the Megamarch and told their friends about it. With Bauer, Großmann has already mastered this twice – in 2021 and again this year. This is also one of the reasons why the two women are only now starting from Innsbruck. “I know every stone on the track,” says Großmann-Stangl.