Grosser Ahornboden

The Grosser Ahornboden is a flat valley floor at about twelve hundred metres deep inside the Karwendel, and standing across it are roughly two thousand sycamore maples, many of them two to four hundred years old, spaced out on open pasture with the Spritzkarspitze and the Laliderer walls rising directly behind. The trees were left by grazing practice rather than planted, and the stand is protected as a natural monument; because they are old, hollow and dying back, a replanting programme has been running for decades to keep the stand going. Access is odd - the road in runs through Bavaria to Hinterriss and then up a toll road - which keeps the numbers down except in October, when the maples turn and the valley fills with photographers.

The landscape

• About two thousand old maples - spaced across open pasture, many centuries old.
• The Laliderer walls - the limestone faces closing the valley behind the trees.
• A protected natural monument - with replanting to sustain the ageing stand.
• Autumn colour - the reason the valley fills with photographers in October.

When to go

June to October; October for the colour. The toll road closes in winter. A day.

Good to know

Access is a toll road reached largely through Germany, and it closes in winter. October weekends are extremely busy and parking fills. Facilities are one inn and little else.

Nearby

Hinterriss is the road head; the Achensee is south-east.