Girl Scouts and Berchtesgaden

Call me crazy, but I just spent the weekend with 18 girls between the ages of 10-12 in Berchtesgaden, Germany. We sold those cookies last February and bought ourselves a bus to the Hinterbrand Lodge for the weekend, see below. The Hinterbrand Lodge is an Army owned facility open to student groups from Europe. It's free and completely self-catering. We had to bring our own food, cleaning supplies and bedding but couldn't have picked a better location for a bunch of Girl Scouts. The Hinterbrand Lodge was built in the 1920's and sometime in the "30's taken over by the German Nazi party. A man named Dietrich Eckhart hid here in 1926 from the Weimar Republic. Later, Hitler later dedicated the second part of his book "Mein Kampf" to this man whom he considered his mentor.

Our plans included visiting the Eagle's Nest, Hitler's hideaway in the Alps; the Berchtesgaden salt mine tour, and hiking around the Lodge. We worked on GS Badges and had a fabulous weekend!

The girls returning from a two hour hike and the Hinterbrand Lodge on the top of our hill. We were at 3200 ft.

Who needs an alarm clock when you can wake up at 7am to the noise of cowbells? We ran out of our Lodge to see and hear the cows being herded to a different pasture.

The view from the balcony of my room. Breathtaking! Would you ever want to leave?

Later, we took off on a hike around the Lodge and found the cows! We tried to talk to them but they didn't speak English, only German!

A view from below of the Eagle's Nest. We spent the morning hiking around the top of this mountain. There was still LOTS of snow and I was constantly screaming at the girls to "Get off the snow!" The highlight of this trip for me was having lunch on top of this mountain with its 360 degree panoramic view.