Austria

Austria is mountain country: the Alps cover nearly two thirds of the land, from the limestone walls in the north to the glaciated main ridge in the middle. Between them lie the valleys, carved by rivers like the Inn and the Enns, where the villages sit and the trains run. Towards the east the land flattens, through the Alpine foothills to the Pannonian plains around Lake Neusiedl, and in the south it climbs again into the Hohe Tauern. Alpine meadows, mountain forest and above the treeline grass and stone: this vertical order decides where a walker goes, and when.

In the Zillertal the Berliner Höhenweg runs just over 70 kilometres along Alpine Club huts on the main ridge, high above the treeline. The region was a cradle of mountaineering around 1850: the Berlin section built the valley's first hut there in 1879, and part of the route has existed since 1889. The last piece was only finished in 1976; the highest passage, over the Schönbichler Horn, sits above 3,000 metres. In the Karwendel, the largest nature park in the country, the Karwendeltour links five Alpine Club huts over six stages through a limestone range of sheer walls and silent cirques, with the city of Innsbruck sometimes visible in the valley. Huts provide meals and a bed, and the valleys are reachable by train and bus.