Distance: 17.00km
Difficulty: Easy
Max. Altitude: 1588m
This hike has been completed on 12th July 2020.
Beautiful gorges are not an exclusivity of Slovenia. Also in our beloved Bavaria (and Austria), we can find some amazing ones. This hike features one of the most famous, the Leutaschklamm at the border between Austria and Bavaria.
We parked our car at the parking slot near Mittenwand train station, which is free-of-charge at weekends. From there, we walked south through the town, up to the Mühlbach river, where we turned right.
We followed then the river inside a nice park, reaching eventually the Austrian border and the entrance of the gorges. The gorges can be visited without any ticket. If you want, there is also a waterfall that can be visited prior paying a small ticket of 3 euros (we skipped it).
The gorges can be visited by means of a gangway, placed above the gorges on the side of the mountain. The gorge has a total length of 1,6 kilometres, and is the longest accessible gorge in the Eastern Limestone Alps. More information on the gorge can be found here.
After some hundreds photos, we made to the end of the gorge path, walking for few meters on the road up to the trailhead for the Grünkopf.
The path is quite pleasant, going through the forest, not requiring particular hiking skills. From the trailhead up to the peak is about 3 kilometres with an altitude difference of 550 m. Quite relaxing. At the top we stopped for our lunch break, appreciating the view over the town of Mittenwald.
After lunch, we began our descent, pointing at the two alpine lakes of Ferchensee and Lautersee. The path here gives great views of the magnificent Wettersteinspitze, that can be climbed following a diversion, requiring though better hiking skills (T4 Level).
The trail reaches eventually the Ferchensee lake, where we found many people enjoying the summer sunlight and taking some bath. We limited ourselves to a relaxing walk around the lake and an obliged stop at the local hut for a refreshing Radler.
We continued to the other lake, the Lautersee, and then back to the town of Mittenwald, to conclude our hiking day.
