Elm with Overlap

Directly across from the Pühringerhütte, a yellow sign for “Elm” points east, and shortly afterward, a wooden sign points to a trail that winds right up a ridgeline (marked in red; unpleasantly muddy and quite steep). At the top, the trail turns sharply to the right and follows the karst-covered, only partially vegetated ridge uphill. After a challenging karst section, the route veers to the left edge of the ridge, where the terrain becomes easier. It then continues uphill through dense mountain pine. The trail markers are already somewhat faded but quite frequent, making them extremely helpful in the karst scree. Finally, you cross a saddle covered with dwarf pine and find the open summit slope ahead of you, where the trail first leads diagonally to the right and then, in the final stretch, runs directly along the broad, grassy ridge up to the highest point, where two summit crosses stand side by side.

For the descent, head toward a green meadow ridge south of the Elm, which can only be reached by taking a right-hand curve and crossing a small karst gorge. On this ridge, the trail initially descends gently toward the south and veers slightly to the left at the bottom (cairns), before descending over steep rocky outcrops to the upper edge of the mountain pine fields. Here, turn left into a mountain pine-lined path (cairns), which immediately bends to the right and reaches a karst clearing; from the lower left end of this clearing, you descend into a gully and then follow the cairns to the left over rugged scree to another gully, from which you look straight down toward the Grundlsee. Follow this rugged gully downhill, guided by cairns and stone markers and passing a karst cave, until it becomes flat and wide. Here you must turn sharply (!) to the left into a path through mountain pine (cairns) and immediately afterward turn 90 degrees to the right into another gully, which you follow downhill along the cairns. Shortly after this gully also flattens out and shows traces of a path in the meadow, you must turn left again at a cairn into a rocky, rugged mountain pine path and, following the cairns, turn right immediately afterward to reach another karst gully. This gully is rocky on the left and offers a grassy descent on its right side, which soon becomes karstic again and reaches rugged terrain, where you must gradually turn left (cairns) to enter a rocky gully bordered by mountain pines. Follow this gully through a small depression and briefly uphill along the base of the Karstschrofen. It reaches another depression, beyond which the path leads straight up a steep incline. The gully then becomes a rocky gorge that cuts straight through several more depressions. Later, the gorge transitions into a grassy gully with distinct trail marks, which leads, beyond a rocky passage, to an open area with sparse forest. Above a karstic area, continue in a straight line to a depression where, at a 90-degree angle to the right, a wide, grassy karst gully opens up and cairns mark the path down into the valley. The trail, which is already clearly defined here, leaves this gully to the right and passes an old pasture fence, runs along another gully, and then descends a slope with sparse coniferous forest, where it becomes difficult to follow. At the bottom of this slope, turn right (turning left would take you to the Ochsenkarhütte) to follow a well-defined trail over a hilltop and through undulating pastureland toward the end of a forest road.

Follow the forest road to the right as far as the Vorderbachalm, where you turn left onto a vehicle road toward the first hut and, just past it, take a footpath that leads down to a footbridge over the Vorderbach. On the other side, turn back onto the forest road and follow it to the left over a hilltop to the “Lustiges Eck” lookout point, where there is a bench. From there, continue along the forest road, past the turnoff to Gößl, to the next marked turnoff, which leads left and downhill back to Schachen and thus to the starting point.