Karwendeltour

The Karwendeltour crosses the Karwendel range from Scharnitz on the Bavarian border to Pertisau on the Achensee: 51 kilometres in four days, with 2,300 metres of climbing and three huts as fixed points.

At 727 square kilometres the Karwendel is the largest nature reserve in the Northern Limestone Alps, protected since 1928. The route runs through the Isar valley, over limestone ridges with views of the Birkkarspitze, through the Eng valley with its ancient maples, and below the Laliderer Wände, north walls almost 800 metres high.

The huts are the story. The Karwendelhaus at 1,765 metres opened in 1908, built with pickaxes and dynamite; the Falkenhütte at 1,848 metres sits in a meadow bowl directly beneath the Laliderer Wände; the Lamsenjochhütte at 1,953 metres stands below the Lamsenspitze, where ibex graze the slopes opposite in the evening.

Practical. The huts are DAV houses with half board and must be booked ahead, months in advance in July and August. Scharnitz has a station on the Mittenwaldbahn between Innsbruck and Garmisch; Pertisau is reached by bus from Jenbach, where trains from Innsbruck stop. The season runs from mid-June to early October, when the passes are free of snow.