Gehrenspitze (2367m) near Leutasch is a parade viewing mountain and offers a challenging traverse. A barely visible path leads through dense mountain forest and steeply up a gully to a final ridge leading to the summit. On the way up to the highest point, you will probably only meet a herd of chamois, but on the descent via the normal route through the Puittal valley, the chances of meeting other people rise again. A beautiful, lonely and challenging round tour for mountaineers with experience in pathless steep terrain.

Notes

A helmet is recommended in case of falling rocks. There are no huts en route. This route is best avoided in wet and snowy conditions.

Directions

From the car park go to the crossroads and follow the signs to the Pichler bakery. Behind the bakery climb briefly to a small bench and behind it through a thicket into the forest. Go around the rockfall protection fence on the left and follow the steep, sometimes barely visible path through dense mountain forest. Occasionally you will find red trail markings or inconspicuous cairns - so some sense of orientation is required (or GPS). Due to the steepness of the path, you quickly gain height and reach a scree slope lined with mountain pines.

Follow this gully no less steeply uphill on the right edge of the gully. After a small cave, you will occasionally have to use your hands and do some climbing (UIAA grade I). But soon the gully flattens out and you reach a wide rubble field with a cairn at the highest point. Now you are standing at the wide ridge, which you follow to the left again with an easy climb. The highest point in sight is not yet the summit, but a small hill in front of a saddle. From the saddle, however, you only have to cross the summit flank and in a few metres you will reach the summit of Gehrenspitze. There is an amazing panoramic view of the main ridge of the Alps and the peaks of Hohe Munde, Leutascher Dreitorspitze and Arnspitze. Climbers can explore the northern routes on the Schüsselkarspitze with binoculars...

From the summit, follow the well-trodden and marked path to the west. The narrow path still requires surefootedness until it finally ends in more benign terrain to the memorial hut of the Akademischen Alpenvereins München and the Scharnitzjoch. From the pass, turn right (east) into the Puittal valley, which you now follow downhill. Shortly before reaching the bottom of the valley, you reach a crossroads where you turn right, cross the stream and now return to the valley. From here, walk along the edge of the forest on the Adlerweg (Eagle Path) back to the starting point.