Axamer Lizum - Marchreisenspitze (Lustige Bergler Steig)

Access to the starting point:
From Ljubljana, take the motorway past Salzburg towards Munich. At the Dreieck Inntal multi-level junction, take the A93 towards Innsbruck/Kufstein/Brenner. On your return to Austria, continue to the Innsbruck-West exit. There, continue on Egger-Lienz-Straße and turn towards Axams in the route Axamer Lizum/Lizum. Continue driving to Axams, where a signpost directs you to a fast climbing but comfortable asphalt road, which you follow until you reach the free parking lot at the Axamer Lizum ski resort. From the centre of Innsbruck, Axamer Lizum is about half an hour's drive.

An alternative is to drive through northern Itali: in this case, from central Slovenia, take the A2 motorway to one of the border crossings with Austria and continue to Lienz. Here you continue on the 100 road and pass the Prato alla Drava crossing into Itali. In Itali, follow the SS49 all the way to the junction with the A22 motorway in the direction of the Brenner Pass. After the pass, continue in the direction of Innsbruck to the Innsbruck-Süd exit. At the fork, take the B182 and continue to Axams. From there, follow the above description.

Path description:
From the parking lot, head past the centre of the Axamer Lizum ski centre along a dirt road towards the valley headland below the craggy peaks of Kalkkögl. Following the signs for Marchreisenspitze, after a few minutes' walk along the road, turn left onto a narrow track that initially crosses a meadow. Soon the path turns to the right and begins to climb gently through the sparse forest on the southern slope of the Schneiderspitze. A little higher up, the forest thins out and the path crosses the pasture slope horizontally and climbs towards the Halsl saddle, where there is a crossroads of several paths, including the alternative path to the Marchreispitze, which leads to the saddle from the Stubai valley. From the parking lot at Axamer Lizum, it is just over an hour's walk to the saddle.

From Halsl, continue in the direction of Ampferstein and the Marchreispenspitze, or "Lustige Bergler" - the signpost warns that this is an activity suitable only for experienced mountaineers. In the initial part of the route, the trail climbs moderately steeply in switchbacks on the grassy slope of an unnamed peak in Kalkkögl, but it remains technically undemanding. After a good 30-minute walk from Halsl, you reach a ravine that drops deep towards Axamer Lizum and, at its edge, you climb to the broad ridge of one of the Ampferstein headlands. The trail continues for some time, undulating through a grassy, wooded landscape, until, after about 45 minutes' walk from Halsl, we reach the base of the rocky building Ampferstein. Before descending into the hollow where the protected part of the route to Ampferstein begins, cross a slightly exposed passage over a steep ravine, and then, with the help of the first fixed safety gear on the route (with the exception of a narrow pipe of some kind), descend to a plain in an extremely picturesque setting. From the depths, a rope ascends a path which leads over an exposed ledge and continues up a steep slope, with occasional help from the fixed safety gear. A little later, the path becomes a continuous protected path, where you climb over steep rocky jumps with the help of a rope ladder. After a short crossing of a crack in the Ampferstein wall, there is an almost vertical climb over a rocky threshold, where we are also helped by steps. After this, the steepness eases a little and the protected path leads to the top of the ravine below the Ampferstein façade. To the top of Ampferstein, continue along the path which crosses the steep grassy slopes high above the Stubajska valley. After about 15 minutes of further walking, you will reach a crossroads just below the top of Ampferstein, from where it is only a few minutes' climb to the top with the traditional large cross.
From the top of Ampferstein, descend to the crossroads and continue walking along the "Lustige Bergler" trail towards Marchreisenspitze. At first, we descend to the connecting ridge between Ampferstein and Marchreisenspitze, a few tens of metres lower down, where we find ourselves in front of a key part of the route: the narrow chimney, which we climb with the help of a vertically strung rope and stops that help us with the difficult crossing. After chimney, follow a less technically demanding route along a wide overlooking ridge for some time until a rope takes you over a short exposed ledge followed by a descent on crumbly terrain to the foot of the main building of the Marchreisenspitze. From here, with the occasional aid of the cable car, we cross the sometimes slightly airy slopes below the wall of the Marchreisenspitze. Soon the path leads to the outlet of a narrow and steep ravine, where you head steeply upwards, following the 'Mar' sign. Climbing up a very steep gully (as far as other hikers are climbing behind us, great care is needed to avoid breaking rocks), we use a series of rope ladders to reach a point where the trail points sharply to the right onto a ledge in the Marchreisenspitze wall. The ledge, from which we can enjoy magnificent views to the south, curves over the edge, narrows and crosses the Marchreisenspitze exposed above a precipitous depression; the route is well protected by cairns at this point. Beyond the ledge, the path continues in switchbacks along a grassy notch, which leads to a jagged and relatively sloping cliff, over which you can climb with the help of ropes to the summit area of the Marchreisenspitze. Here, the difficulty and steepness ease off, and the summit, with its large cross and magnificent views, is only a few minutes' easy walking away.

Despite the fact that the "Lustige Bergler Steig" is usually presented in the context of modern ferrata, its course and difficulty are much more reminiscent of the very difficult protected trails in the Slovenian high mountains than of modern sport ferrata. It has a relatively modest rating of B on the Austrian scale of protected trails, but it is nevertheless recommended to use a self-belaying kit, and a helmet is sooner or later compulsory due to the sometimes very crumbly terrain in the limestone mountains. The descents are the difficult marked route leading directly via the Malgrubenshcharte to the Widdersberg and the Axamer Lizum, and the longer and slightly more difficult variant which, after the Malgrubenshcharte, ascends to the top of the Hochtennspitze and descends a steep gully to the Hoaldl and the starting point.

On the way: sedlo Halsl (1992m), Ampferstein (2556m)

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