Last year my partner (Ante) and I hiked the Isel Trail with our dog Wulf. We had a great time, and this is a small trip report of our hike. The hike consists of 5 days of hiking, where day 4 ends at a mountainhut, this was my partner’s and Wulf’s first hike in the mountains. So we decided to look for a relatively easy hike to start with. The first 3 days are relatively flat, we are from the Netherlands, so our flat is a little bit different ;)
Intro
The Isel Trail is an “easy” five day hike in Austria, it starts in the town of Lienz, where we rented an appartment for the duration of the hike. It’s easier for Wulf when he gets to return to the same house each night. Each day we traveled by car to the endpoint for the day, and used public transport (free if you rent a holiday home in the area) to get to the starting point. This was ideal for us as we didn’t have to hurry to catch the last bus. This made the entire experience a lot more relaxed.
Day 1: Lienz - St. Johann im Walde
Our first stage was very wet, unfortunately we had rain for the entire hike, but luckily there wasn’t much technical terrain so no big issues there. As this was the first stage it was a nice and gentle entry into hiking-mode for us. The whole hike folows the Isel and this stage you have a view of the river almost the entire hike.
Day 2: St. Johann im Walde - Matrei
On our second stage, we had completely different weather, we had sun through the day. Unfortunately the stage was a little less interesting to hike, only the end had some nice singletracks but the views made up for it. We parked our car at the endpoint for today and took a bus to the start, so we didn’t have to arrive at a specific time.
Day 3: Matrei - Prägraten am Großvenediger
A beautifull stage with nice trails, and some interesting up and downhills. With a big hanging bridge as a nice feature. We had beautiful paths for almost the entire day.
Day 4: Prägraten am Großvenediger - Clara Hutte
Today is the day we will go to the Cara Hutte, it’s only uphill today, but first we park our car on the parking lot in Prägraten, this is important because it means we don’t have to rush the last day to catch the bus. This day we get above the treeline and get true “alpine” environments. The last part of the stage is especially beautifull.
Day 5: Clara Hutte - Umbalkees - Prägraten am Großvenediger
The last stage, after a good nights rest in the hut, we start the day early(ish). We will hike up to the glacier and return down to our car today. So we have to cover alot of ground. The hike up to the glacier is a little bit challenging, crossing some rock fields, and some vertical staple stairs. Which were especially challenging for our dog.
After this steep part it’s a little easier and we reach the endpoint:
After a quick sandwich we return to the hut for some emergency Kaiserschmarren to refill our energy. Last thing is the downhill, which was a little bit tough as it’s the last part of the hike. Imagine walking down stairs for a couple of hours.
Conclusion
We had a great time hiking the Isel trail and we can’t wait to go on a similar adventure soon.
We hiked for 75km.
We had one restday (which wasn’t a true restday)
Parking the car at the endpoint for each day was a very nice way to complete this hike.