Gamskogel (2813 m) - hike from Burgstein

Gamskogel (2813 m) is a mountain peak just south of Längenfeld in Ötztal. Two trails lead to the summit, one from Gries, and one from Burgstein. The trail from Gries seems to be quite popular, but I could not find any reports about the trail from Burgstein. Today I did the the hike from Burgstein.

Start of the hike shortly before 8 AM. The lower part of the hike follows a forest road, but I took numerous shortcuts on the way up to Wiesle. Sometimes there are obvious paths, or at least path traces. Above Wiesle, the trail is clearly marked (red-white-red) and easy to follow. During the ascent it was mostly cloudy, but it was kind of humid, and I was still sweating alot. On the ridge above elevation 2350 m it gets a lot steeper and rugged. In many spots there are steel cables mounted for safety. Generally I tried not to use them, and I have rated the hike accordingly. In some places it is a T4. About 250 m distance before the summit, the trail from Burgstein merges with the trail from Gries.

After 3 hours with a reasonably good pace I reached the summit. There were already three other hikers up there, two had ascended from Burgstein like me, and one trailrunner had ascended all the way from Längenfeld via Gries. It was still mostly cloudy, but shortly after I reached the summit the sun came out.

Right after I started my descent, a group of five hikers approached on the trail from Gries. For the descent I generally followed the same route where I came up.

Remarks:
- Please see attached GPS track for more details on the route.
- The total time given for this hike includes in total 1 hour breaks.
- Equipment: hiking sticks.