Thundering water and burning larches

Today I present you a very varied hike, which is for me exactly at this time of year the most beautiful. Scenically a dream and certainly something for lasting memories. It goes into the Karwendel and we will go through the beautiful, wild Ehnbachklamm, walk through burning larches and at the end enjoy the alpine Karwendel panorama at the Neue Magdeburger Hütte. Let's go!

Preferably you can travel to our tour by public transport. Buses run regularly from Innsbruck main station to Zirl. If you come by car, you can park it at the Red Cross next to the Seefelder Bundesstraße. From here the path starts well signposted in the direction of Ehnbachklamm. Under the main road, the path leads to the other side of the Ehnbach and up steep steps to the entrance to the Ehnbachklamm gorge. You can already hear the rushing, wild water and if you continue along the path, it also becomes narrow right away. The path is secured here with a wire rope and tall people have to bend down a bit, but you quickly pass this narrow spot. Already here at the beginning the gorge is very impressive and it is worth a photo stop.

From here, the trail continues up through the gorge, passing impressive waterholes again and again. The path is very wet in autumn and often covered with leaves, please be careful here, as it can be very slippery!

At the end of the gorge you come to the high dam wall. You walk up this wall via two steep steps and from the wall you can enjoy the panorama. Unexpectedly, the Brunntal opens up here with several streams of the Ehnbach. Wonderful!

After leaving the dam wall behind us, we continue along the well-marked path to the Brunntalhütte. Steeply through the forest it goes up until you come to the forest road of Hochzirl. At the end of the blog I will explain how to enter the tour here without going through the gorge. Well signposted it continues until you come to the tracks of the Karwendelbahn. At the tunnel portal of the Martinswand tunnel, the path branches off in the direction of Brunntal and here it goes through the beautifully autumnal and dense forest again very steeply uphill.

After leaving the steep forest path behind us, we reach the forest path to the Brunntalhütte. We follow this for a few minutes and reach the beautiful Zirler Mähder. At this time of year, the many larches on fire and glowing in orange and yellow are a real autumn dream. The many private wooden huts round off the whole to a super ensemble.

The Zirler Mähder are another highlight of our hike. Here it is worthwhile to sit on one of the "Bankln" and simply enjoy. Photo enthusiasts are also sure to find numerous motifs. I'll just let the photos do the talking.

From the Zirler Mähdern, continue to the very close Brunntalhütte (Brunntal snack station). This is unfortunately closed at the moment due to Corona and you continue along the forest path, well signposted to the Neue Magdeburger Hütte.

After a good kilometre of forest road, you can decide whether you want to continue on the forest road or take the forest path. Both are about the same distance and time-wise identical. The Neue Magdeburger Hütte can be reached from the Brunntalhütte in just over an hour. The forest path leads over the unmanaged Kirchbergalm.

The Neue Magdeburger Hütte is beautifully situated at 1,633 metres on a small high plateau at the foot of the Kleiner and Großer Solstein mountains, very idyllic between larches. Several small huts and a very small wooden chapel complete the whole. Very photogenic is a small lake right next to the hut. In my case it was already frozen.

The same way back either via the forest path or the forest path and the Kirchtalalm down to the Ehnbachklamm.

Those who would like to save themselves the gorge and thus a partial ascent can also make the hike via the Zirler Mähder and the Brunntalhütte to the Neue Magdeburger Hütte via the Hochzirl railway station. Free parking is available here, but it is advisable to travel by train for an impressive ride through the galleries of the Martinswand. The route from Hochzirl station leads to the ascent from the Ehnbachklamm gorge as already described above.

Walking time: approx. 5 hours in total
Distance: approx. 11km

Please take enough provisions with you, the huts are currently closed due to the Corona measures.

Train schedule to Hochzirl

If you only want to visit the gorge, I recommend to do the short hike to the Kaiser-Max-Grotte from the same starting point. I wrote about it in this blog: Kaiser-Max-Grotte

All photos © Danijel Jovanovic Photography - www.djphotography.at

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