KARWENDEL LIMESTONE ALPS

VIA ALPINA DAY 26 – FRIDAY 17 JULY 2026
HOCHFÜGEN – LAMSENJOCKHUTTE

DISTANCE HIKED: 27.15 km
ELEVATION GAIN:  1,785 m

TOTAL DISTANCE HIKED: 665.00km
TOTAL ELEVATION GAIN: 36,230 m

Lightening and thunder overnight, made us feel very lucky to be staying in a  hotel. When we left this morning, the sun was having trouble breaking through the clouds.  Thunderstorms are predicted for the rest of today with a warning not to be on exposed high ground.

Hochfügen feels so deserted,  must be so markedly different in winter. On the climb from the village we headed towards nearby  Loassattel, from where the steep ascent and then a steep decent from Kellerjochütte is on the route.  Since we are not planning on staying at the hut and due to the weather warning we didn’t see the need to go up to the hut. We mapped an alternate route to the next town Schwaz which bypassed Kellerjochütte.

The trail followed a dirt road through a tall pine forest.  On the way down we passed a guy carrying buckets of some sort of purple berries which he picked somewhere nearby. Hard to believe the surrounding pine forest could yield so much fruit.

A pleasant, though overcast morning we descended towards Schwaz passing through another ski area at KellerjockBahn. 
From here we could see Schwaz town below, with a large grey river flowing through the middle and flanked by imposing mountains on the other side. It is by far the largest town we’ve passed through.

The nice open trail from the ski lift soon gave way to a trail that was so overgrown in parts with raspberry bushes and nettles,  we thought we’d never make it out of there.  Humidity was noticeably rising as we descended.  Hammer was getting frustrated as we moved through the berry tangle. It was a well used trail, it was just in parts that vegetation had gone a bit wild.

We did eventually make it onto the outskirts of Schwaz and found our way through town to a Mpreis supermarket, which it turned out was located in a shopping mall. It felt surreal to have transitioned in 30 minutes  from a tangle of raspberry bushes in the woods to be walking through a brightly lit shopping mall. 
With cold drinks and lunch we sat in the shade,   trying to work out if we should stay in town. Rain was still predicted but the sun was shining and the town just felt too big. So we decided to head towards LamsenjockHutte at 1,950m elevation.

From Schwaz we entered the Karwendel, mountain range of the Northern Limestone Alps. The transition was really quite stark.

Leaving town we started to ascend quite steeply through small villages or outskirts of Schwaz. Leaving the last of the town behind we entered a forest which felt refreshing at first, just to be out of the sun. But it was so humid and with the steep climbing we were really feeling the strain.

The ascent soon leveled off for a bit when we passed a Christmas tree farm. From here we followed a dirt road which made hiking feel easier because we had views, especially once the trail ascended to the Karwendel Nature park.

A really lovely open grassy area surrounded by limestone peaks.  It was interesting that the only notice we saw when we entered the Nature  park was a detailed description on how to behave around cows.

Progress felt slow at times but we could see we were getting closer to the hut as the vegetation receded and we were surrounded  by sheer limestone walls.  The hut eventually came into view much to our relief. We had decided to stay at the hut as  clouds were still gathering. 

We made it just before 7pm.  A busy hut with a full dining room. A very regimented hut with so manu rules, we got our beds assigned,  got a cold drink and retired to bed. Feeling a bit trashed by the afternoon of climbing and the humidity. By the time we went to bed the thunderstorm had not arrived.