Two summits from Maurach: Bärenkopf & Ebner Joch

Technical difficulty: 4/10
Fitness: 7/10
Objective danger: 5/10 (more with snow. read below)
Landscape: 8/10
Busy: 6/10

A runnable round close to Achensee with two interesting summits and beautiful views of Inntal and the lake.

Starting point: Rofan Cable Car parking lot
Ending point: Rofan Cable Car parking lot
Length: 30km
Vertical: 2000m
Speed: Mostly very runnable trails.

Route:

We start off from the cable car parking lot, cross the village of Maurach and turn onto a bike path leading to Lake Achen. After a hundred meters or so we turn onto Weißenbachstraße and head towards the Bärenkopf massive in front of us. The road eventually turns into a forest road and starts gradually climbing up towards Weissenbachalm. This is a first place where you can get some food or drink along the way.

After the hut, follow the forest road for few hundred meters more until the Weißennbach saddle. From here we follow the trail north-east on the ridge ascending all the way to the summit of Bärenkopf (1991m). We backtrack our steps back to the saddle and continue downhill northwards towards Bärenbadalm. We reach the hut after some nice and technical single track through a forest. The hut has nice views over the lake.

We continue down the marked trail leading back to Maurach. First on a single track, then on the forest road for most of the descent back to the lake. Eventually we connect to a bike path following the banks of the lake and follow it back to the village of Maurach. We pass through the village mostly following the train track, until the trail leaves the bike path a bit behind the village (suggest following the GPS here as this can be hard to find).

The trail runs parallel to the main road for a few hundred meters and then starts climbing steeply towards Astenau Alpe. Most of the ascend is in the forest, but eventually the trees break open and we are treated to an amazing view of Inntal and Zillertal below us. From the hut, the trail gets really steep and leads us through low growth alpine trees to the summit of Ebner Joch (1957m). The summit has a great 360 degree views of the surrounding valleys, the large Lake Achen and the Rofan mountain range.

We backtrack our steps back to Astenau Alpe, with optionally tagging the summit of Kirchenspitz (1770m) along the way. Once back at the hut, we follow am amazing single track west/north-west along the south-western flank of Ebbner Joch. The trail is really technical, yet flowy. Eventually it turns into a forest road and leads us to the recently burnt down Buchauer Alm.

From here it is just a few kilometers down a steep trail (or runnable but relatively boring forest road) back to the parking lot.

Pro tip: with late or early snow, Bärenkopf is really prone to gliding snow avalanches. So we recommend checking the avalanche conditions before you set off.

Photos by @the.running.nomad and @joerg_zenkel