Haidersee - Bruggeralm - Schafberg
Technical difficulty: 2/10
Fitness: 6/10
Objective danger: 1/10
Landscape: 7/10
Busy: 6/10
Very runnable loop close to Reschenpass, with amazing views over the Ortler mountain group in the distance.
Starting point: Camping zum See, San Valentino
Ending point: Camping zum See, San Valentino
Length: 21km
Vertical: 1000m
Speed: mostly nice and runnable trails.
Route:
We start from the village of San Valentino, following the road to the small settlement of Plagött for a few hundred meters uphill. The road changes into a forest road shortly afterwards and continues climbing uphill, crossing a ski slope back and forth a few times. We keep following the signs to Brugger Alm. The forest road eventually flattens out and traverses south/southwest along the mountainside. After about 5km from the start, we reach the Brugger Alm hut, a great place for a break and some food/drink in a beautiful setting.
Once ready, we continue up the valley called Zerzertal westwards, slowly climbing on a broad forest road until reaching another small farm hut just above 2000m. From here the road turns into trail and starts climbing up the hillside to the south-east. We continue climbing until reaching the wavy ridge line at about 2400m just south of the summit of Schafberg (2411m). An amazing view of the Ortler group opens up here with many glacier-covered mountains in front of us.
We tip over the ridge and start descending south on a flowy trail passing by many small lakes towards a bigger lake - Großer Pfaffensee at about 2250m. Here the trail turns sharply to the north-east and continues descending through flowy trails and eventually forest roads back towards the south side of the lake we started from - Haidersee.
Once we reach the lake side, we connect to a flat hiking trail passing by the east side of the lake, that leads us the last few kilometers back to where we started, passing a lot of birds and fishermen along the way.
Photos by @the.running.nomad, @bennibru, @sontschi2604, @isale04 and @annikasuess
