Walking in the Salzkammergut: the Austrian Lake District: 30 walks in Salzburg's lakes and mountains, including the Dachstein

About the Author

Rudolf Abraham (www.rudolfabraham.co.uk) is an award-winning travel writer and photographer specialising in Central and Eastern Europe. He is the author of a dozen books and has contributed to many more, and his work is published widely in magazines.

Other Cicerone guides by the author

St Oswald’s and St Cuthbert’s Way

The Islands of Croatia

The Mountains of Montenegro

The Peaks of the Balkans Trail

Torres del Paine

Walks and Treks in Croatia

WALKING IN THE SALZKAMMERGUT: THE AUSTRIAN LAKE DISTRICT

30 WALKS IN SALZBURG’S LAKES AND MOUNTAINS

by Rudolf Abraham

JUNIPER HOUSE, MURLEY MOSS,

OXENHOLME ROAD, KENDAL, CUMBRIA LA9 7RL

www.cicerone.co.uk

© Rudolf Abraham 2020

First edition 2020

ISBN 9781783628544

Printed by KHL Printing, Singapore

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Route mapping by Lovell Johns www.lovelljohns.com

All photographs are by the author unless otherwise stated.

Contains OpenStreetMap.org data © OpenStreetMap contributors, CC-BY-SA. NASA relief data courtesy of ESRI

For my daughter Tamara, who was with me every step of the way.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the following people for their support and enthusiasm while I worked on this guide: Ernst Kammerer and Theresa Schwaiger at Tourismusverband Ausseerland; Thomas Möslinger at Wolfgangsee Tourismus; Gerhard Spengler at Tourismusverband Traunsee-Almtal in Ebensee; Stephan Köhl at Tourismusverband Bad Ischl; Petra Wieder at Salzkammergut Tourismus Marketing; Melanie Grasberger at Tourismusverband Traunsee-Almtal Gmunden; Stefanie Wallner at Ferienregion Dachstein Salzkammergut in Bad Goisern; Renate Kritzinger at Wiesberghaus; Martina Jamnig and Eleanor Moody of the Austrian National Tourist Office in London; and Ulrich Teitz at Deutsche Bahn. Last but not least, I would like to thank my daughter Tamara, who between the age of seven and nine made half a dozen trips to Austria with me while I was writing this book, and proved herself the best hiking company anyone could ever ask for.

Updates to this guide

While every effort is made by our authors to ensure the accuracy of guidebooks as they go to print, changes can occur during the lifetime of an edition. This guidebook was researched and written before the COVID-19 pandemic. While we are not aware of any significant changes to routes or facilities at the time of printing, it is likely that the current situation will give rise to more changes than would usually be expected. Any updates that we know of for this guide will be on the Cicerone website (www.cicerone.co.uk/996/updates), so please check before planning your trip. We also advise that you check information about such things as transport, accommodation and shops locally. Even rights of way can be altered over time.

We are always grateful for information about any discrepancies between a guidebook and the facts on the ground, sent by email to [email protected] or by post to Juniper House, Murley Moss, Oxenholme Road, Kendal, LA9 7RL.

Register your book: to sign up to receive free updates, special offers and GPX files where available, register your book at www.cicerone.co.uk.

Note on mapping

The route maps in this guide are derived from publicly available data, databases and crowd-sourced data. As such they have not been through the detailed checking procedures that would generally be applied to a published map from an official mapping agency. We have reviewed them closely in the light of local knowledge as part of the preparation of this guide – however, for more information consult the sheet map(s) recommended in this guide.

Front cover: View across Vorderer Gosausee (Walk 28)

CONTENTS

Overview map

Location of walks map

Map key

INTRODUCTION

Geography and geology

Climate

Wildlife and plants

History

Getting to Austria

Getting around by public transport

Accommodation

Food

Language

Money

Phones

Maps

Waymarking

Hiking with kids

Longer routes

Low impact hiking

Safety and emergencies

Using this guide

FUSCHLSEE, WOLFGANGSEE AND MONDSEE

Walk 1 Fuschlsee circuit

Walk 2 Ellmaustein from Fuschl am See

Walk 3 Filbling from Fuschl am See

Walk 4 Plombergstein from St Gilgen

Walk 5 Zwölferhorn

Walk 6 St Wolfgang to St Gilgen via Falkenstein

Walk 7 Schafberg to Fürberg and St Gilgen

Walk 8 Almkogel and Eibensee from St Lorenz

TRAUNSEE TO BAD ISCHL

Walk 9 Grünberg and Laudachsee

Walk 10 Vorderer and Hinterer Langbathsee

Walk 11 Feuerkogel, Alberfeldkogel and Helmeskogel

Walk 12 Grosser Höllkogel and Riederhütte

Walk 13 Offensee to Rinnerhütte and Wildensee

Walk 14 Katrin (Seven Lakes View Trail)

Walk 15 Ewige Wand

AUSSEERLAND – ALTAUSSEER SEE, GRUNDLSEE AND TOTES GEBIRGE

Walk 16 Altausseer See circuit

Walk 17 Loser

Walk 18 Trisselwand

Walk 19 Tressenstein

Walk 20 Grundlsee, Toplitzsee and Kammersee

Walk 21 Drei Seen Blick

Walk 22 Vorderer and Hinterer Lahngangsee and Pühringerhütte

DACHSTEIN, HALLSTÄTTER SEE AND GOSAUSEE

Walk 23 Hallstätter See East Shore Trail

Walk 24 Hallstatt to Weisberghaus and Gjaidalm via Echerntal

Walk 25 Dachstein Nature Trail

Walk 26 Taubenkogel from Gjaidalm

Walk 27 Heilbronner Trail

Walk 28 Vorderer Gosausee and Hinterer Gosausee

Walk 29 Löckermoos

Walk 30 Gosausee to Theodor-Körner Hütte

Appendix A Route summary table

Appendix B Gateway cities: Salzburg and Linz

Appendix C Further reading

Appendix D English–German glossary

Appendix E Useful contacts

Dachstein peaks and Gosau Glacier reflected in Gosaulacke (Walk 28)

INTRODUCTION

On my first visit to Salzkammergut I hiked up through the Echerntal, the forest a patchwork of dark greens and reddish browns, flecked with the pale gold of larches. Mist clung to the sides of the valley, and waterfalls threaded their way silently down dark grey rock faces as I crunched up through October snow onto the edge of the Dachstein plateau. The following morning I woke early to watch the massive northeast face of the Niederer Oschsenkogel turn blood red in the first rays of the early morning sun; and later that day, followed a snowbound trail up towards Simonyhütte on the edge of the Hallstätter Glacier, watched by a group of ptarmigan which blended almost completely into the soft white slopes below Wildkarkogel. I have been returning to this breathtakingly beautiful part of Austria ever since.

Ferry on Grundlsee, departing from Gößl (Walk 21)

Austria’s Salzkammergut region is a wonderfully alluring sweep of landscape east of Salzburg, studded with lakes (there are some 76 of them in all) and bristling with mountain peaks, its sprawling karst plateaus and fractured glaciers rising above great glacier-scoured valleys and lush, forest-cloaked hillsides.

It’s a fantastic area for walking, with an enormous range of trails, from easy lakeside strolls to challenging mountain walks and everything in between, and the routes in this guide have been selected to cover something of this variety. All the routes in this book lie within the capabilities of the reasonably fit walker, without requiring any technical climbing or equipment. All of them are ludicrously easy to get to, with many lying less than an hour from Salzburg, and all of them accessible by public transport. Ferry routes crisscross the larger lakes, and there’s a mountain railway on one peak. Each can be walked in a day, from a guesthouse in one of the many small lakeside towns and villages, or from a mountain hut – and there’s plenty of scope to link some together to form longer through walks. In between hikes, there are seemingly limitless opportunities for a swim, ice caves and historic salt mines to visit, and wonderful Austrian food and hospitality to enjoy.

The area’s history stretches back through several thousand years of highly organised salt mining, which developed into the extraordinarily rich Iron Age culture of the Hallstatt Period. Many centuries later, Salzkammergut was the summer residence of Emperor Franz Josef I, from where affairs of state of the vast Austro-Hungarian realms were administered. The whole Dachstein massif and Hallstatt area form a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and the Totes Gebirge forms part of the Northern Kalkalpen IBA. Hallstatt itself is hugely popular, but travel only a short distance and you can find quiet, uncluttered trails, hillsides studded with wildflowers, views which you will stay with you forever.

Writing this guide has been a hugely rewarding experience, the most challenging part of which was having to decide which walks not to include, since there are simply so many to choose from – and over a succession of trips to this part of Austria, has taken me along some of the most compellingly beautiful hiking trails I know.

SALZKAMMERGUT AT A GLANCE

Austrian states: Salzburgerland, Upper Austria, Styria

Language: German

Religion: Predominantly Roman Catholic

Time zone: CET (GMT +1)

Currency: Euro

International dialling code: +43

Electricity: 240V/50Hz (standard European two-pin plug)

Geography and geology

The Salzkammergut region lies east of Salzburg and straddles the borders of three Austrian states: Salzburgerland, Upper Austria (Oberösterreich) and Styria (Steiermark). Unlike these Federal States (Länder or Bundesländer) the borders of Salzkammergut are a little imprecise, but essentially it stretches from Ebenau in the west to the River Steyr in the east, including the huge sprawl of the Totes Gebirge in the east and the Dachstein plateau in the south, and ending just beyond Scörfling and Gmunden in the north, where the hills abruptly melt away into the plains. What really ties it all together as a geographical area, however, is its long history of salt mining (the name Salzkammergut is derived from the words salz meaning salt, and kammergut which is an old term for a demesne, the lands belonging to a lord or king under the feudal system of land ownership) – but more on that later.

In any case, the mountains of the Salzkammergut region form part of the Northern Limestone Alps, or more specifically according to the Alpine Club’s Classification of the Eastern Alps (AVE), comprise the following mountain groups: the Salzkammergut Mountains, the Upper Austrian Prealps, the Totes Gebirge and the Dachstein Mountains. Sweeping through them from south to north is the Traun, the area’s main river.

Within this area, Salzkammergut contains an extraordinary number of lakes – some 76 of them, ranging in size from over 45km2 (Attersee, the largest lake in Salzkammergut) to tiny alpine tarns, and in depth from 191m (Traunsee, the deepest lake in Austria) to just a few metres. The altitude of the larger lakes is generally between 500m and 700m. It is these lakes – See in German – in combination with the region’s spectacular mountains, which perhaps more than anything else give Salzkammergut its special character.

The walks in this guide are centred around several of these lakes – Fuschlsee (Walks 1–3), Wolfgangsee (Walks 4–7), Mondsee (Walk 8), Traunsee (Walks 9–13), Altausseer See (Walks 16–19), Grundlsee (Walks 20–22), Hallstätter See (Walks 23–24) and Gossausee (Walks 28–30) – and visit a dozen or so more of them from these bases. The few walks that aren’t centred on a lake are centred on the