Hiking · Untertauern, Salzburg, Austria · recorded with NomadTracks

Over the Hengst to the Wildsee: 18.6 km in the Radstädter Tauern

A full day in the Radstädter Tauern: 18.6 kilometres, 1,060 metres of climbing, five and a half hours from the Gnadenalm at 1,278 metres to 2,135 on the Hengst and back down again. Recorded on a Friday in September, with the cloud low enough all day to keep the tops interesting.

It is a loop of two halves. The way up is a valley and a hut; the way back is a high traverse under limestone walls, a cirque lake, and a waterfall you can walk behind. Fifty-two photographs, which is roughly one every four minutes of moving time.

Distance18.6 km
Elevation gain1,060 m
ActivityHiking
Duration5 h 35 min

About this data: this track and its photos were personally shared with us as samples by a NomadTracks user. NomadTracks never uploads, collects or shares your tracks or photos — your recordings stay on your devices and in your own cloud.

Route map of Over the Hengst to the Wildsee: 18.6 km in the Radstädter Tauern drawn from the recorded GPS points on an OpenStreetMap basemap
The actual recorded GPS track — start marked green, finish orange. Numbered pins mark where the photos below were taken.

Download GPX Coordinates, elevation and relative times — recording dates are normalized out, photos not included.

Elevation profile of the track
Elevation profile over the full distance. Switch the map above to interactive mode, then slide across the chart — a marker follows the route.
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Out of the Gnadenalm, up the valley

The start is the Gnadenalm on the old Tauern pass road above Untertauern, at 1,278 metres — a broad flat alm at the head of the Taurach, and the trailhead for most of what follows. The track runs south past the Hintergnadenalm at 1,336 metres and then turns uphill in earnest. The first four kilometres are the gentlest of the day and the last flat ground you get: from here the profile climbs almost without a break for two and a half hours, from valley floor through larch and dwarf pine onto open grass.

A hut that ran out of lease

At 1,802 metres the route passes the Südwiener Hütte, and it is worth knowing what you are looking at. The hut was run by the Vienna Gebirgsverein section of the Austrian Alpine Club and stood on land belonging to three Agrargemeinschaften, on a hundred-year lease. That lease ran out. New terms could not be agreed, the building no longer met current requirements for rooms and wastewater, and there was no money for the rebuild it would have needed. It closed on 30 September 2024, a year and a half short of the hundredth birthday it would have had in 2026, and demolition is under consideration. For anyone planning this route the practical consequence is simple: there is no water, no food and no roof up here, and the winter room is out of service too. It was a stage on the Zentralalpenweg, so that long-distance line lost a link the same day.

A stallion where the map is wrong

Above the hut the ground opens into the broad grass back of the Hengst, and at the top there is no cross but a rearing stallion cut out of steel — Hengst is German for stallion — guyed to the rock with steel cable. The recorder puts the summit at 2,135 metres. What is interesting is where: OpenStreetMap has the Hengst a couple of hundred metres off, and the recorded track is the one that is right. That is worth a moment on a site about GPS tracks. Mountain maps are not ground truth, they are somebody's earlier survey, and a recording made on the summit is a better witness to where a summit is than a node in a database.

The traverse under the Pleißlingkeile

East of the Hengst the route stops climbing and starts contouring, and this is the best part of the day. The line holds a little over 2,000 metres for four kilometres, along the foot of the Pleißlingkeile and the Großwandspitzen — the Vordere at 2,380 metres, the Hintere at 2,437 — with scree fans running down from grey walls and the cloud pressing on the ridge. The elevation profile flattens into a long ragged plateau here, which is exactly what it felt like: small climbs and drops, no real summit, and the wall on your right the whole way.

The Wildsee

At the eastern end of the traverse the ground falls away into a cirque and the Wildsee sits in the bottom of it, dark green, with the wall of the Großwandspitze rising straight out of the scree behind. It is a little over 1,900 metres and it is the turning point of the loop: from here everything is downhill, 800 metres of it, on the Felseralm side of the valley.

Alpacas, then sixty metres of waterfall

The descent passes the Felseralm at 1,633 metres, where two alpacas were lying on the gravel in the afternoon sun and showed no interest whatsoever in the traffic. Below that comes the Johanneswasserfall: sixty metres of water over a limestone step, with a viewing platform cantilevered out at the top and a secured path that takes you along behind the falling water. About two hundred steps connect the two. It is the one part of this loop that is on every family-walk list in the valley, and after five hours of empty ridge the handrails and the day visitors arrive as a slight shock.

What five and a half hours of recording is actually for

This is the kind of day a track earns its keep. The line holds the answer to how long the traverse really took, where the climbing was, and how much of the descent was still ahead at the Wildsee — the things you cannot reconstruct afterwards from photographs alone. It also holds one small correction to the map. The GPX below has coordinates, elevations and relative times for anyone who wants the same loop; read the note about the hut before you count on it for water.

About the place: Untertauern, Salzburg, Austria

The Radstädter Tauern are the western end of the Niedere Tauern, in the Salzburg Pongau between Radstadt and the Tauern pass. The Gnadenalm, at 1,278 metres on the old pass road above Untertauern, is the usual starting point: a flat alm basin at the head of the Taurach, with the Johanneswasserfall — sixty metres, with a viewing platform and a path running behind the water — twenty minutes above it. Southwards the valley climbs to the Südwiener Hütte at 1,802 metres, built by the Vienna Gebirgsverein and closed on 30 September 2024 when its hundred-year lease on the land expired; it was a stage on the Zentralalpenweg and demolition is under consideration. Above the hut the terrain turns to open grass on the Hengst, then to limestone: the Pleißlingkeile and the Großwandspitzen, 2,380 and 2,437 metres, whose walls carry the high traverse east to the Wildsee. The rock is what makes this corner of the Tauern look unlike the rest of the range — pale, broken and steep, with scree fans and cirque lakes, above pasture that is still grazed.

The start at the Gnadenalm, 1,278 m, on the old Tauern pass road above Untertauern
1 · The start at the Gnadenalm, 1,278 m, on the old Tauern pass road above Untertauern
Climbing out of the valley at 1,469 m, larch and limestone ahead
2 · Climbing out of the valley at 1,469 m, larch and limestone ahead
The track past the Südwiener Hütte at 1,802 m — the hut on the left has been shut since 2024
3 · The track past the Südwiener Hütte at 1,802 m — the hut on the left has been shut since 2024
Looking back across the valley from 2,047 m as the cloud sits on the tops
4 · Looking back across the valley from 2,047 m as the cloud sits on the tops
A rearing stallion in steel marks the Hengst: the high point of the day at 2,135 m
5 · A rearing stallion in steel marks the Hengst: the high point of the day at 2,135 m
The traverse east under the walls of the Pleißlingkeile, weather coming in
6 · The traverse east under the walls of the Pleißlingkeile, weather coming in
The Wildsee in its cirque, dark green under the Großwandspitze
7 · The Wildsee in its cirque, dark green under the Großwandspitze
Alpacas at the Felseralm, 1,633 m, on the way down
8 · Alpacas at the Felseralm, 1,633 m, on the way down
The Johanneswasserfall — 60 metres, with a viewing platform on the lip and a path behind the water
9 · The Johanneswasserfall — 60 metres, with a viewing platform on the lip and a path behind the water

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