Grubereck Trail in Rauris Valley – Hiking the Alps

Reaching the starting point

The Grubereck trail starts at the church in Rauris which is a village located approximately 100 kilometers south of Salzburg. If you are coming from Salzburg or Villach, you should drive along the Austrian expressway A10 until you reach the Bischofen/Pongau exit. Get off the expressway there and continue on the 311 towards west until you reach the town of Taxenbach. Here you should turn left towards Rauris (L112) and continue until you reach the village.

If you are coming from the south-east (Innsbruck, Bolzano) you can also reach the village by driving along the E45 highway until you reach the Jenbach exit. Take the exit and then continue towards south by driving through the towns Fugen and Kaltenbach until you reach the town of Zell am Ziller. Here turn left on the 165 and stay on this road until you reach the town of Taxenbach. In Taxenbach turn right (towards south) and continue on the road until you reach the Rauris village.

If you don’t have a car, you can also reach the starting point relatively easy by public transport. You should take the train (for timetables, check out the Austrian railways site) to the train station called Taxenbach Rauris. To and from Salzburg for example there are trains going approximately once per hour (approx. duration = 75min). From the train station you then take bus 640 to Rauris and get off at Rauris Ortsmitte or Rauris Gstatt (check on the map where it suits you best).

Trail

From the church, you start walking towards north; there is also a directions sign at the church and you should go towards Gaisbachtal – Karalm. Please note that the GPS route attached above doesn’t start at the church but at the guest house where we stayed (approximately 600 meters away from the church). After walking for 150 meters you will reach a crossroad where you should go right and then after walking for only 20 meters or so you should go left towards Grubereck (there is a direction sign again). There the asphalt road starts ascending gently and runs towards north-east. After hiking for a few minutes you will see a public swimming pool on your right and soon after the road will start meandering uphill. Continue on the road until you come to a small chapel in one of the many u-turns (1.7 kilometers away from the church).

There you will see a narrow path which runs towards north-east while the road turns towards south. Continue on the path and after hiking for approximately 500 meters you will again reach the asphalt road (the narrow path is a shortcut). Continue on the asphalt road towards north for approximately 1 kilometer until you come to a group of houses. There you will see a direction sign (Grubereck) which will direct you onto a narrow path that runs towards north (here the road turns towards west). At the beginning of the path you will see a wooden gate – which was locked at the time of the hike. We simply climbed over the gate and later figured out that several locals did the same.

The path then ascends rapidly up the grassy slope towards the Brundlalm mountain hut which lies 1420 meters above the sea level. The hut was closed at the time of our hike but most likely it is operational in summer when there are more people hiking. From the Brundlalm mountain hut, continue on the trail which goes towards north-west. The trail soon changes the direction towards north-east and goes into the forest. On this stretch the trail was covered with snow and thus fairly slippery. After traversing half way through the forest you will reach a small clearance where a little hut is located. From there you can get a really good view on the Rauris valley and surrounding peaks. After the forest, the trail starts ascending to the ridge of the Grubereck mountain. From there you only have 1.2 kilometers of hiking (direction east) left before you reach the peak.

On top you will be rewarded with a great view on the Rauris valley and the numerous peaks surrounding it. Experienced mountaineers can prolong this trip by also climbing the Sladinkopf (2305 m.a.s.l.) or Bernkogel (2325 m.a.s.l.) which are both located very close to the Grubereck peak. However, the trail to these two peaks is quite technically challenging (probably also in summer).

Getting back to the starting point

For the way back we used the same path as for the climb except that we didn’t take the shortcut (see the GPS route) as it was already getting dark and was thus easier to walk on the asphalt road.

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• Note: In September 2020 the Monkey Man jacket was renamed to the Mountain Hardwear Polartec High Loft jacket, but except for a few minor changes (like an exterior chest pocket), it is basically the same jacket. The links lead to the newest version.

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