Technical difficulty: 4/10 (the ridge maybe 6, the rest 1)
Fitness: 7/10
Objective danger: 2/10 (the ridge maybe 4, the rest 1)
Landscape: 6/10
Busy: 5/10

An excellent option for spring, with some runnable terrain to get your legs going and a nice ridge of Gratlspitze for the mountain feels.

Starting point: Parking lot at Kundl Klamm
Ending point: Parking lot at Kundl Klamm
Length: 33km
Vertical: 2100m
Speed: Most of it very runnable (large part on forest roads or paved roads). The ridge of Gratlspitze is technical and slower going.

Route:

From the parking lot, start up the road uphill towards the settlement of Saulueg and further along to Distelberg. Here the road ends and changes to a forest road. After a few hundred meters on the forest road a trail leaves to the right and starts climbing uphill through the forest in the direction of Holzalm. The trail crosses the forest road again a few times and traverses in a general south-western direction until reaching the hut mentioned above.

From Holzalm, continue along a different forest road still further south-west in the direction of Außerhauseralm and Inner Hauseralm. The forest road eventually ends at a saddle called Hauserjoch. This is where the technical parts of this adventure start. We start following the trail eastwards. After few hundred meters we pass a small hut at the end of the winter toboggan run and join a steep trail climbing uphill to the summit of Gratlspitze.

The ridge itself is quite technical, with few places secured by fixed ropes. The forest eventually opens up into some beautiful 360 degree views. We follow this ridge until the summit cross at Gratlspitze (1897m). We stay on the ridge (there is also a trail leaving the summit to north-east. Do not take that one) and follow it until the Halsbergalm and eventually all the way down to the saddle of Hösljoch with a small chapel.

From here, we start on the last uphill of the day, following further east/south-east, along Höslalm and climbing up towards the summit of Latschenk (1731m). We bypass just below the summit from the south and eventually end up at the top station of the Thalerkogel ski lift. From here we start a really long descent northwards towards the village of Thierbach. There is a forest road going all the way or a trail running in parallel. In wet conditions, recommend sticking to the forest road wherever possible.

From Thierbach, we run along the official roads all the way to the village of Mühltal. This is a lot of distance on a slight downhill and can be a fast moving. Just before entering the village of Mühltal, turn left to the road/street called Klammstraße that will lead you towards the Kundl gorge. You start following the stream of Wildschönauer Ache downstream. The gorge is slowly narrowing as you long along side it, eventually ending up in a few kilometers of really nice and wide trail running at the bottom of a quite narrow canyon. This leads you all the way back to your car.

Pro tip: there are some nice swimming spots in the river good for a refreshing dip after your run.

Photos by @the.running.nomad, @bennibru and @meid.bereit