Day 21 – Climbing To The Wettersteinhütte

Feb 3, 2024

Today’s Adventure

Day 21 of our alpine adventure featured clear skies and lots of sunshine with temperatures climbing into the mid-40’s – perfect weather for taking a ‘big view’ hike. Cindy and I rarely lock down our schedule in terms of which activity to do on any specific day; this strategy allows us to take the best advantage of the bluebird days like today.

We started with a 25 minute bus ride from the Seefeld Bahnhof that left around 10:00 AM. The scenic route took us over into the next valley where we passed through the small town of Leutasch and then up a small canyon to a wide spot in the road called Gaistal/Stupfer. Actually calling it a wide spot is an exaggeration – there was simply a small parking lot for hikers and skiers that didn’t even warrant a sign for the bus stop!

We easily found the trailhead and were only a few yards up the trail when we decided that we were definitely going to need our ice cleats. The trail started out on a steep uphill that was covered with hard-packed snow and ice, so better safe than sorry. As it turned out we wore the cleats just about all day, especially on the steep descent after lunch.

The trail took us on a continuous and sometimes rather steep ascent through a pine forest. Along the way we enjoyed recurring keyhole views across the valley towards the Hohe Munde, an 8,700’ twin-peaked limestone monster that anchors the eastern end of the Mieminger Range. As we approached our destination the views really started to open up and there was an expansive view of jagged, snow-covered alpine peaks all around.

Our destination today was the Wettersteinhütte, a small restaurant and guest house located on an exposed promontory overlooking the surrounding mountains. It was quite a slog to get up there – just under 2,000 feet of elevation change from our starting point – but the stellar views definitely made it worthwhile.

http://wettersteinhuette.at/

When we arrived at the Wettersteinhütte all of the really choice tables up against the building (i.e. sheltered from the wind) were already taken but there were still some good tables on the outer rail. We chose one at the far end of the sun deck and sat down for lunch. As it turns out we were facing the brilliant sun and had our backs to the wind so we were perfectly comfortable. Cindy decided to order the goulash soup while Stuart had the Hauswürstel with sauerkraut. Both were quite good and really hit the spot after our morning workout.

By the time we finished our lunch the sun deck was filling up with the second wave of diners so we decided it was time to head back down the mountain. The trail was just as steep as we remembered and the previously frozen sections were starting to thaw out due to the warmer temperatures, the brilliant sunshine, and the foot traffic. The result was that the surface in many areas was turning into what skiers often refer to as ‘mashed potatoes’.

We made good time on the descent in spite of the trail conditions thanks to our cleats. As we approached the original starting point we took a different trail that wandered through some meadows and delivered us a bit further down the valley in a tiny hamlet called Klamm. We found their local bus stop and caught the next bus back to Seefeld.

All told we walked about 6.5 miles today in just under three hours. Nowhere near a record distance for us, but the 1,909 feet of unrelenting vertical made for a very challenging hike. The good news is that this trail certainly lived up to the reports of outstanding views!

For Innichen’s main page click here.

For Seefeld’s main page click here.

For the entire trip’s main page click here.