Hochkalter crossing

Day 1: The route begins on AV path 482 from Hintersee to the Blaueishütte, 1651 meters. An overnight stay is recommended here.

Day 2: The next morning, you ascend through the Blaueiskar covered with boulders to the ruins of the old Blaueishütte. Behind it, a path branches off to the right and leads over the distinctive, steep scree gully to the right of the Rotpalfen up to a slabby final wall. Now keeping right, you go through larch corridors over steep but grippy slabs (I–II) to the Schöner Fleck, 2015 meters. From the broad grassy shoulder, you walk on the west side of the ridge over rocky outcrops southwards and traverse under a rocky gully. Through this, you ascend over boulders to a rock ledge (I-II). Keeping right again, you reach a 15-meter high rock wall. Using good holds (II), you master this most difficult section of the ascent. Afterwards, the terrain gets a little easier and leads on the broad ridge up to the summit formation of the Rotpalfen. This can be either crossed over or bypassed on the right. Following the ridge, mountaineers now reach the Kleinkalter, 2513 meters. From there, you descend into the Kleinkalterscharte and go behind it over the last ridge ups. A small notch requires one more short climbing section (II) before the summit of the Hochkalter, 2607 meters, is reached.

Over rock steps and a steep, tiered scree gully, you now descend about 100 vertical meters in a southwest direction to a small peak. Here you traverse left on a slightly descending ledge and reach the Ofentalscharte over a terrain step. From the notch, continue down on the west side over a gully. Then you climb in switchbacks over rock steps and lastly over a narrow rock ledge to the right into the highest, often snow-filled Ofental, 2300 meters, descending. On clear trail marks, follow the right slope over scree, finally crossing a terrain threshold down to the tree line. Then follow the obvious path that soon becomes a forestry road, winding by wide turns through the forested west flank of the Ofental down to the Klausbachtal. In the valley floor, keep right and after about 30 minutes reach the Klausbachhaus bus stop south of Hintersee. The starting point is reached along the Hintersee in 15-20 minutes.