Ladinger Straße - Offnerhütte

Access to starting point:
We leave the Klagenfurt am Wörthersee - Graz highway at the Wolfsberg Süd exit, then at the roundabout take the exit signposted St. Michael and Saualpe. Further on, at several junctions we keep following the left-hand directions; from the village of St. Michael we follow the signs for the settlement of Lading. Further ahead the road becomes narrower and starts climbing more steeply towards the mentioned settlement, where at several junctions we follow the main road or the signs for the Alpengasthof Gießlhütte guesthouse. From the guesthouse we continue driving a few hundred metres further to the marked parking lot next to the yellow hiking signposts.

Path description:
From the parking lot, we take the left path in the direction of the cottages Offnerhütte, Wolfsberger Hütte and Zechhütte (right along the road to Ladinger Hütte), where at the end of the parking lot the path enters the forest and then ascends diagonally. A few minutes higher we cross a macadam road (left along the road to Zechhütte and Reiseberger Hütte), a few steps further we cross another poorer macadam road, and then continue through the forest for some time. Higher up, the path leads us along the upper edge of a nearby pasture (here another path branches off to the left towards the hut Zechhütte), from where a beautiful view opens up that reaches all the way to the Slovenian mountains, and then a gentle path continues along the ridge of the peak Moarhaltberg. A few minutes further on we return to a wider macadam road, where the path past the hut Zechhütte joins from the left, and we continue straight ahead along the panoramic road.
From the road, a path soon branches off quite inconspicuously to the right over a grazing fence towards the mountain hut Offnerhütte, which we follow (straight ahead is the mountain hut Wolfsberger Hütte; it is also possible to reach the hut Offnerhütte by the road).
Next follows an ascent over an increasingly panoramic pasture, where we follow a fainter footpath and sparse blazes. Higher up, we cross a grazing fence once again and return to the road; we turn right and in about a minute of further walking we arrive at the mountain hut Offnerhütte.
Description and photographs refer to conditions in November 2025.