The Vitals
Date: June 21-28, 2024
Location: Mayrhofen, Austria
Distance: ~90 km
Time: 8 days
Resources: Trekking in Austria’s Zillertal Alps, Austrian Alpine Club
The Summary
The Berliner High Route/Berliner Höhenweg/Zillertal Rucksack route is a hut-to-hut, multi-day hike in the vicinity of Mayrhofen, Austria. As a loop, it can be done in either direction staying at any or all of the 8 huts en route. The local Tirol tourist information website describes it counter-clockwise but we flipped to the clockwise version which matched our guidebook.
In general, the route was much more difficult than anticipated. I expected casual days covering 10-15 km on broad, well-traveled trails with optional use of the fixed lines. This was not the case as there were several long boulder fields, decidedly non-optional fixed lines, and (at times) fairly narrow trails on very steep terrain. The difficulty was well within our abilities and fitness but the technical aspects did exceed expectations. The other surprise was how accessible every hut is in one day from town. I had thought the huts were only accessed from the route we were following but each can actually be reached from their respective valleys with a bus and 2-6 hours of hiking.
Day 1 – Edelhütte 4 km
The first day started very early in a hotel at the Stuttgart Airport where I had spent the week working at a tradeshow for my day job. We had a series of trains to take to eventually arrive in Mayrhofen in the early afternoon.
Transit more or less followed the schedule and we did arrive in Mayrhofen at the expected time, but we were feeling a bit ill and travel weary from the last hot train (the “Zillertalbahn”, 760 mm gauge rail, 1902). I had wanted to hike from town to the first hut (Edelhütte) but it was getting too late in the day to add another 1300 meters of climbing, so we took the Ahornbahn gondola up instead. One more repack of the bags at the top and we were off, arriving at the hut after a little more than an hour of pleasant hiking.
This was our first night using the hut system and we didn’t really know how it worked but it was easy to find the hut warden and get assigned a room. With only three groups staying for the night, we were each given our own rooms. Before dinner we wandered a little ways above the hut towards Ahornspitze but just enough to get a view before some rain forced us back down to the hut.
As we waited for dinner, a group of three came in having traveled from Kasseler Hut (the next day’s destination). They were very excitable and speaking rapidly with the hut wardens. We asked them how the trail was as they quickly downed a beer each and got their opinion that the trail was dangerous and slow. It had taken them two hours longer than planned and they had had an unanticipated slide down a steep snow slope. They left as quickly as they arrived, shooting to get the gondola back to town before it closed for the night.
Dinner was eggs and potatoes and then early to bed. In the middle of the night we awoke to watch a wicked lightning storm light up the room. By morning the rain had passed and the sky was blue.
Day 2 – Kasseler Hütte 12.5 km
After an uninspired breakfast, we left the hut at 7:30 to attack the first, and supposedly greatest, difficulty of the day. Visible from the hut, the first pass was reached by a very steep snow field followed by a short section of rock with fixed lines. We donned our microspikes as soon as we reached the snow and had good traction up to the pass.
At the top I felt a bit disoriented by the narrow ridges and steep slopes. There were small sections of the trail that had slid sometime in the spring, and the slope was steep enough I was not confident I could stop if I took a tumble.
However, we had our best views of the surrounding peaks at this time of the morning and took in the numerous narrow ribbon-like waterfalls cascading down the surrounding slopes.
Over the next several hours we negotiated two more small passes aided by fixed lines, and spent much of the intervening time boulder hopping. Along the way there was a pleasant bivy hut, a few herds of livestock, and one wild animal (chamois or ibex?) but we couldn’t see it clearly enough from a distance to identify it.
Near the bivy we met an older gentleman who said he had slept in the bivy because there was an uncrossable river near the Kasseler Hut. This didn’t make perfect sense because the group of three we had met the prior day at Edel Hut had not mentioned any such difficulty. Nearing the hut, there were two rivers to cross but in each case there was a fine bridge and we reached the hut shortly before another rainstorm began.
Before the light faded, we tried to scout the route ahead to Greizer Hut but it did not look promising. A lot of snow and difficult terrain dampened our optimism. The final straw was when a group stumbled up to the hut having just come from Greizer. It took them 9 hours when a usual time would be about 5 and they also told us that there was a waist-deep river crossing since the bridge was missing and that most of the fixed lines were smashed off after the winter. They had to spend hours navigating through the most dangerous sections and clearly recommended we forget about any plans to continue our original route.
It was a let down to abandon our plans of completing the entire circuit after just our first full day of travel, but we were unfamiliar with the terrain and didn’t think it was a good idea to ignore what seemed like good advice from an experienced source. That meant the rest of the evening was spent trying to figure out how and what to skip in order to get back on track further up the valley.
Day 3 – Berliner Hütte 17 km
It rained all night as we shared a much more crowded dorm room but still slept well. The plan was to descend to the Stillup valley, take a bus to Mayrhofen, take another bus to Breitlahner, and then hike up to Berliner Hut. This looked like it might take a while so we were up at 6:00 and were the first ones out of the hut in a light rain.
We descended the many switchbacks to the valley where we saw the lower end of the seilbahn – the cable car that sends supplies including kegs of beer up to the huts. We started walking down the valley along the walking path next to a blue river. Both of the sides of the valley were steep and covered in small waterfalls that eventually reach this river and then the Speicher Stillup (reservoir). The valley bottom is also a narrow strip of farmed land with many small grazing herds of livestock.
Part way down the valley we were picked up by a shuttle bus (and then another shuttle bus) that brought us back down to Mayrhofen less than 48 hours after we first started. We realized that the public bus towards Breitlahner was due in exactly 3 minutes so we ran a couple of blocks and nabbed it just in time. We otherwise would have had two hours to wait in Mayrhofen.
The bus ride was fun with tunnels and kitty cats in pretty farm fields. After the bus dropped us off, we had lunch near some picturesque sport climbing routes overhanging a river. Next we started uphill towards Berliner Hut.
We hiked fast, first on a broad road along the valley bottom, then up switchbacks as we gained elevation more steeply near the head of the valley. The last sections included a narrow road that wants to fall down the hillside and then, finally, stone steps that reach the hut.
Berliner Hut is by far the most beautiful hut in the Zillertal. It was first built in 1879 and has been expanded several times to the huge, stately structure it is today. In its history it has been used as a hunting camp for aristocracy and as a training location for mountain troops. It’s wood paneled dining room and adjacent terrace are a sight to behold.
At Berliner we rented a double room and took a nap before taking a walk around some of the nearby paths and looking at the route that passes over Schönbichlersharte to Furtschaglhaus. This is the highest pass of the Berliner High Route and the hut workers told us that no one had yet made the crossing to Furtschaglhaus this year. There had been one party that came the other way and said it was still under a lot of snow and difficult. Still, we were encouraged to try the next day and we could return to Berliner Hut if we found it too difficult.
Day 4 Furtschaglhaus 9 km
We awoke early again, eager to put some distance in. We made several river crossings on bridges near Berliner Hut as we descended slightly before picking up a steep trail atop a moraine. This path gained elevation quickly before we left the moraine to climb ever higher in a boulder field.
Soon we reached a clear boundary to continuous snow and put on our microspikes. We had also reached the low cloud layer that had been a feature of much of the hike so far. With the trail markers under the snow except for the odd cairn pushing through, we navigated with GPS until a section of fixed ropes brought us up towards the highest ridge.
As we traversed rock and snow, the clouds would occasionally lift for a few seconds allowing us to see an intimidating looking pass. We found faint tracks of the other party from a few days earlier but didn’t always follow them. Reaching the pass required some steep contouring on snow up to 45°, transitions to steep and loose rock, and finally scrambling loose blocks. Many of the fixed lines near the top were under snow or broken but there were many alternate routes to scramble as long as we checked our holds for loose rocks.
Now near the top of the pass (highest point of the route, about 3080 m), we thought it had been fairly difficult and wouldn’t be much fun to route-find down the same terrain. Luckily, the other side of the pass was almost entirely snow, so after about 50 m of scrambling down more loose rock, we only needed to descend a short section of snow above cliffs before we could start walking upright for the rest of the day.
The descent was passed easily as snow gave way to trail again and Furtschaglhaus came into view. The hut warden was surprised when we said we had come from Berliner Hut and made a phone call to pass the information back to them. We were proud of ourselves too, having taken on a challenge that demanded route-finding, steep snow travel, and scrambling. It was a “real” day in the mountains but we were able to keep the risk manageable.
After a shower and a huge pasta dinner in the incredible dining room, I sat on the terrace in a lounge chair gazing at clouds swirling around the two highest peaks of the Zillertal – the Große Möseler and the Hochfeiler. While Berliner Hut should not be skipped, Furtschaglhaus was the hut with the best atmosphere.
Day 5 Olperer Hütte 13 km
The remainder of the route is more heavily trafficked and generally lower elevation so it felt like we could cruise the rest. One problem was that we were a day ahead of schedule by skipping Greizer Hut so we wanted to add back a day somewhere to get our hut reservations back on track.
Originally we weren’t going to stay at the extremely popular Olperer Hut, but we added it after the success of the prior day. This day’s hike starts with 500 or 600 m of descent and then a walk next to the large Schlegeisspeicher (another reservoir) before a choice of routes up to Olperer. It was recommended that we take the longer route which is more scenic.
We climbed up to a rare alpine meadow (most terrain is too steep to host a tranquil stream surrounded by wildflowers) and, following that, an incredible stairway and path through a boulder field. Apparently the Olperer Hut ownership was recently transferred and the new mountaineering club section expended a herculean effort to build this scenic trail.
We were one of the first groups to arrive of what would end up being a full hut, so we were able to choose a more private loft in the shared 8-bed dorms. Olperer Hut also has a breathtaking view from the dining room and a much-photographed suspension bridge. Both of these things, combined with it’s short access from the valley, makes it extremely popular and not quite the mountain refuge atmosphere I enjoy most.
Day 6 Friesenberghaus 8 km
What followed was a very short day. Less than two hours after leaving Olperer, we glissaded down the last snow slope on the way to Friesenberghaus – the highest hut in the Zillertal. It was only just after 10:00 am so we had a lot of time to kill ahead of us.
We started with a hike towards the Hohen Riffeler, a nearby peak, but black clouds threatened rain and we weren’t feeling especially energetic. We ate lunch atop the first bump on the ridge leading to the summit before coming back down to a col and crossing over to the top of the tiny hill called Petersköpfel. This mini-summit is littered with stones that many enterprising individuals have used to build various sculptures.
After this, we returned to the hut and had a nap before an afternoon beer on the terrace while other groups arrived before dinner. The room at Friesenberghaus slept 15, with two layers of seven-across and an extra little cot. In the end, there were 14 guests in the room making it the most crowded of the trip. There was also another lightning storm at night but we still slept well enough.
After dinner, the hut warden rang a bell and read the weather report in German and English. This was tradition before everyone had access to weather reports on their phones and was a fun experience.
Day 7 Gamshütte 14 km
The penultimate day started off fast. We fairly flew around the shoulder of Petersköpfel, dashed by the lake and boulder field, stopped for a moment to take pictures of ptarmigan, and then down the most technical rock and snow of the day where we also spotted a lone chamois. This was quite fitting because the German name for the chamois is the Gämse and our destination for the night was the Gamshütte.
After reaching about the halfway point, we began to slow down a bit. The second half of the day was a return to very steep contouring similar in nature to the hike between Edel Hut and Kasseler. At one point, a large rock started tumbling down the mountain from above us so we reversed course quickly to be clear of its path. There was also a memorial to a mother and son who died on one particularly steep section.
The final descent brought us down to the last hut with an ebullient hut warden and an icy outdoor shower with mountain views. It was only our second chance to wash during a week of outdoor activity and it felt great to pull off a layer of grime while frigid water gave me brain freeze.
The last dinner was also one of the best, with a quieter atmosphere as most people who visit this hut are day trippers and have left by supper. The final sleep had us sharing with just two others in the dorm room and we were looking forward to a hotel in Innsbruck the next day.
Day 8 Mayrhofen 12 km
While the final day was relatively short and downhill, it was not overly pleasant. The start was a fine hike downhill in the forest, which we had done little of so far. However, as we descended it began to get hot and the trail became repetitive.
When we reached the town of Finkenberg we looked for something to eat but there didn’t seem to be any bakeries or cafes, just a lot of hotels (granted, some did have unappealing restaurants). We ate our last nuts and trudged on after a few wrong turns. There were some short, pretty sections between Finkenberg and Mayrhofen but we were mostly over hiking and ready to be done.
At the edge of Mayrhofen there was a supermarket and we wasted no time getting cold drinks and food. We ate next to the river and the busy road before resuming the trudge for the final kilometer to the train station. We arrived just in time to catch another slow, hot train out of the valley to Jenbach before boarding an air-conditioned fast train to Innsbruck.
The hike was behind us and a shower felt great before heading to watch the IFSC Men’s Boulder Final at Innsbruck’s outdoor climbing center. The overall experience was unique with the novelty of new mountains and hut-to-hut travel but I must say, by halfway we missed our tent and the solitude of most of our trips.
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