Saturday, August 31, 2024 - Thursday, September 12, 2024
Stubai Alps,
International,
Austria
With more than 40,000 kilometers of well-maintained Wanderwege (walking trails), mountain huts, attractive villages and breathtaking scenery, Austria's Alps are world renown. One particular area, the Stubaital, is a vast horseshoe-shaped area of high, spectacular, glacier-bearing mountains around the beautiful Stubai valley. The mountains around the head of the Stubaital are some of the most impressive in the Austrian Alps. The scenery is magnificent with splendid views of snowy peaks, mountain lakes, sparkling glaciers and typical alpine meadows amass with flowers. A variety of wildlife, such as ibex, chamois, marmots and various birds of prey may be seen. This alpine area, renowned for its superb landscapes, is located close to Innsbruck, the capital of the Tyrolean region. We will be hiking one of the finest hut-to-hut routes in the Eastern Alps, the Stubaier Hohenweg, a counterclockwise tour of the Stubai Alps. We will start our adventure in the town of Innsbruck and end 12 days later. To ease our adjustment to European time, we will spend our first full day in Austria hiking the Goetheweg, a ten-mile hike we access by cable car in Innsbruck. On our way down, we plan to stop at the Alpenzoo, one of the highest themed zoos in Europe. There we will have the opportunity to observe and enjoy many typical Alpine animals such as ibex, chamois, marmot and the European Bison. The next day we take a bus to Fulpmes where we will take the Kreuzjoch cable car to the top station of the Schlick 2000 lifts to begin our 9-day trek. Our trek follows the counterclockwise route laid out in the guidebooks "Walking in Austria" by Kev Reynolds and "Trekking in the Stubai Alps" by Allan Hartley, both published by the Cicerone Press as well as the website www.stubai.at/en/stubai-high-trail. Aside from the days of arrival, departure, and a sightseeing day in Innsbruck, we will be hiking every day with a typical altitude gain of ~2,100 ft./day and a distance of 6+ miles/day. We will be outdoors approximately 8 hours per day of which ~6 hours is hiking and the balance is lunch and breaks.
