Crossing the Alps from Gar­misch to Ster­zing — Leisurely

Com­pared to the hike from Tegern­see to Ster­zing, this trip is not recom­men­ded. The rou­te is very frag­men­ted and has to be con­stant­ly sup­ple­men­ted with bus trips. The buses only run infre­quent­ly, so you can’t start when you want. Much of the rou­te runs along­side the Bren­ner high­way, which is both visual­ly and acou­sti­cal­ly dis­trac­ting. Half of the hotels were not nice or too noi­sy, 2 nights were spent in Stein­ach, away from the hiking rou­te, but noi­sy becau­se it was loca­ted on a busy road, and the indi­vi­du­al hiking rou­tes were not as nice as on the other tour. cle­ar­ly not recommended! 

This crossing of the Alps from Gar­misch to Ster­zing was the third trip we boo­ked through Feu­er und Eis Tou­ris­tik. It cer­tain­ly was­n’t the last trip eit­her. From the boo­king to the sup­port to the tra­vel docu­ments, the­re has been not­hing to com­plain about so far, but this year’s trip was orga­ni­zed by ASI, which did not detract from the organization.in detail …The sce­n­ery, the­re is not­hing more to say. We were also lucky to have had good wea­ther and the accom­mo­da­ti­on ran­ged from midd­le class to very high class. When we boo­ked a dou­ble room we were always lucky enough to get a room with a bal­c­o­ny. The food was always very tasty and varied. The staff were always very fri­end­ly and the tra­vel docu­ments arri­ved in good time, about two weeks befo­re the start of the trip. The rou­te was well pre­sen­ted. An addi­tio­nal hiking map is defi­ni­te­ly recom­men­ded and some of the infor­ma­ti­on regar­ding local public trans­port could be more detail­ed. For exam­p­le, whe­re is the train sta­ti­on for the Stu­bai Rail­way in Inns­bruck or whe­re are the stops in the indi­vi­du­al towns.Reservations for the last evening in Ster­zing should be made well in advan­ce. The lug­ga­ge trans­port and the return trans­port work­ed real­ly well, all in all a high­ly recom­men­ded tour. 

The crossing of the Alps from Gar­misch to Ster­zing was very rewar­ding over­all, but the­re was still a clear need for impro­ve­ment in places. The posi­ti­ve: —       Most­ly very beau­tiful, hard­ly used paths with some spec­ta­cu­lar moun­tain pan­ora­mas and views. (The 6th stage is our clear favo­ri­te, the 2nd stage is only medio­cre). —       Always good to very good accom­mo­da­ti­on (Stu­bai­er­hof in Fulp­mes and Almis Berg­ho­tel in Obern­berg are sim­ply won­derful!) with beau­tiful rooms, fri­end­ly ser­vice and good half-board. A visit to the swim­ming pool after a stre­nuous hike is also not to be snee­zed at! —       Lug­ga­ge trans­por­ta­ti­on from hotel to hotel work­ed per­fect­ly. The need for impro­ve­ment: —       The crossing of the Alps was orga­ni­zed by ASI. Unfort­u­na­te­ly, ASI was com­ple­te­ly infle­xi­ble in its plan­ning. It was sim­ply not pos­si­ble to do wit­hout the last accom­mo­da­ti­on in Ster­zing and the return jour­ney ! —       ASI initi­al­ly boo­ked one over­night stay befo­re the crossing of the Alps ins­tead of and only had to amend after­wards. —       Maps were only available as enlar­ged map copies in small sec­tions in the accom­pany­ing book­let. Here, too, the Kom­pass hiking map 290 ‘Inns­bruck and sur­roun­dings’, which I then purcha­sed mys­elf, was hel­pful becau­se of the grea­ter cla­ri­ty. Obvious­ly, South Tyrol is no lon­ger in the tra­di­tio­nal area of ASI and so the map sec­tions here are signi­fi­cant­ly smal­ler in sca­le. —       The rou­te descrip­ti­ons in ASI’s accom­pany­ing book­let are some­ti­mes inac­cu­ra­te, some­ti­mes con­tra­dic­to­ry, some­ti­mes out­da­ted or even sim­ply wrong. As a result, the­re were always uncer­tain­ties on each stage due to the poor­ly or dif­fer­ent­ly sign­pos­ted rou­tes. The new Rother hiking gui­de ‘Alpen­über­que­rung Gar­misch-Ster­zing’, which we purcha­sed our­sel­ves, also pro­ved hel­pful here . Alpi­ne crossing Tegern­see-Ster­zing or Gar­misch-Ster­zing? We real­ly enjoy­ed both Alpi­ne crossings. Both are very rewar­ding. Both offer beau­tiful tours through gre­at land­scapes. Howe­ver, the orga­niza­ti­on, way­mar­king (Ü) and direc­tions from Tegern­see to Ster­zing are sim­ply much bet­ter and clearer! 

We were deligh­ted with the hike. Last year we had boo­ked the “Salz­al­pen­steig” tour and were annoy­ed by the hotels, some of which were more or less run-down. This year — apart from the worn-out and limi­t­ed Dorint in Gar­misch com­bi­ned with non­sen­si­cal Bava­ri­an coro­na regu­la­ti­ons — the­re was not­hing to com­plain about in this respect. Aus­tri­an and Tyro­lean hos­pi­ta­li­ty was fan­ta­stic, ser­vice-ori­en­ted and culina­ry excel­lent. In con­trast to the Salz­al­pen­steig, din­ner — at almost the same pri­ce — was included. The Stu­bai­er Hof in Fulp­mess and the Gud­run in Gos­sens­auss deser­ve spe­cial men­ti­on. Short­co­ming: A call to the emer­gen­cy tele­pho­ne of Feu­er und Eis on 26.7.21 — the reason was the addi­tio­nal over­night stay can­ce­led at the Dorint the day befo­re — was only ans­we­red three days later with a call back. The return trans­port from Ster­zing to Gar­misch was also per­fect, no annoy­ing coll­ec­ti­ve bus that first coll­ects the hikers from all the hotels for an hour. It was a rela­tively indi­vi­du­al solu­ti­on, quick and comfortable. 

The train ride to Gar­misch went exact­ly accor­ding to sche­du­le, and we drop­ped off our lug­ga­ge at the spe­ci­fied hotel by cab. The hotels we boo­ked were abso­lut­e­ly gre­at and we were warm­ly wel­co­med everywhere.the din­ners and break­fasts were to our com­ple­te satisfaction.another high­light was the wea­ther. It was the second hike of this kind with Feu­er und Eis.we were a group of six people.we all agreed after­wards that it was great. 

This trip was our first crossing of the Alps. Despi­te Coro­na, the pre­pa­ra­ti­on work­ed out gre­at. It is advi­sa­ble not to walk with the descrip­ti­on book­let, but to down­load the GPS data sent to you onto a cor­re­spon­ding app (e.g. Komoot). Then you don’t have to read it all the time and can be gui­ded as you would by a car navi­ga­ti­on sys­tem. You also have a good alti­tu­de pro­fi­le, which can be very hel­pful in the Alps. In any case, it is advi­sa­ble to try out hiking with the app before­hand and the lug­ga­ge trans­port work­ed per­fect­ly. The hotels were solid and most­ly with a well­ness area and I have to say that we were always plea­sant­ly sur­pri­sed by the evening meals. of cour­se, the Gar­misch-Ster­zing rou­te is quite deman­ding! You have to walk 1000 meters up and down again. Howe­ver, I can’t under­stand why you don’t know that the­re are no huts on the rou­te. You can easi­ly read that in the descrip­ti­on :-)I think that the second stage (whe­re you get to Inns­bruck) could be chan­ged a bit, or an alter­na­ti­ve should be offe­red. As we weren’t inte­res­ted in the city (it was 30 degrees and Sun­day), the hike was a bit short and we would have loo­ked at the loca­ti­ons before­hand — we were not inte­res­ted.   our mista­ke! — we would­n’t have taken the train to Inns­bruck and then the bus to the hotel at 30 degrees with our masks on. A cab on the direct rou­te would have been much more sen­si­ble for us, and the rou­te over the Bla­ser — which we for­t­u­na­te­ly wal­ked — should be favor­ed. Almost all the locals advi­sed us to do it and the views were real­ly fan­ta­stic. The same appli­es to the rou­te into the Odern­berg­tal via the Tru­nahüt­te. An ear­ly start in the mor­ning means that the ascent or length is no pro­blem — you have time! All in all, this crossing of the Alps was sim­ply bril­li­ant!!! The rou­tes were well cho­sen, the natu­re and the flowers/alpine mea­dows were sim­ply beau­tiful at this time of year and the who­le thing was a very spe­cial expe­ri­ence !!!! Many thanks once again to the Feu­er & Eis team and we look for­ward to boo­king the Gmund/Sterzing tour with our hiking group next year. best regards — Gaby, Wolf­gang and Jan 

This tour was our second crossing of the Alps with Feu­er und Eis. Howe­ver, this year’s tour was led by ASI = Alpin­schu­le Inns­bruck and not by Feu­er und Eis.unfortunately, we only recei­ved the docu­ments on request on the very last day of depar­tu­re at home.all in all, we suc­cessful­ly com­ple­ted all the stages. The sce­n­ery on this tour was a high­light and this year we did­n’t meet any “fel­low run­ners” doing the same tour, and the hotels on this rou­te were most­ly well cho­sen. The first few days were very easy to mana­ge. The paths were varied. The last 3 days were the most stre­nuous days with very long stages.18 — 22 km. Howe­ver, the tran­si­ti­on to Aus­tria and South Tyrol was unspec­ta­cu­lar this year. This may have been due to the fact that it was the Schmügg­ler­weg. Unfort­u­na­te­ly, the lon­gest stage of up to 20 km was also the one wit­hout a refresh­ment stop. That was quite a chall­enge! For­t­u­na­te­ly, we found a kind of foun­tain befo­re the ascent to Sand­jöchl, whe­re we were able to fill up our water supplies.the des­cent to Alo­is Berg­ho­tel was very steep and we arri­ved the­re hun­gry after 22 km.we had to deci­de bet­ween 2 dis­hes for din­ner. Once some­thing wit­hout meat and once fish on risot­to. We (our group was 8 peo­p­le) all opted for the fish becau­se we were hun­gry. The food tur­ned out to be a dis­as­ter. The risot­to was ter­ri­ble! We all got a schnapps when we com­plai­ned about the food, but it did­n’t fill us up eit­her! What always work­ed well was the lug­ga­ge trans­por­ta­ti­on. Ever­y­thing work­ed smooth­ly. The pick-up on the last day back to the start­ing point was also good, and we all found one more thing lack­ing: last year we were given a cer­ti­fi­ca­te! That was some­thing spe­cial for us. This year: not­hing!  No stamp book­let, no cer­ti­fi­ca­te. Too bad we won’t be doing a third crossing!