Winterleiten parking - Zirbitzkogelhütte

Access to starting point:
A) From the Gorenjska side we go over the border crossing Ljubelj to Celovec / Klagenfurt or through the Karawanks Tunnel to Beljak / Villach. Next we head onto the highway in the direction of the signs for Gradec / Graz. We leave the highway before the approximately 2 km long tunnel in the direction of Bad St. Leonhard. Further, we drive past the village St. Peter and the smaller town Obdach. Through Obdach we continue driving to Judenburg. All the time we follow the signs for Judenburg until we get to the center of Judenburg. In the roundabout, where there is a gas station in the middle, we turn left in the direction of Seetaler Alpe. We follow the road 17 km and the signs for Winterleiten Hütte and park on the large parking lot before the road closure.
B) From Koroška we first drive to Dravograd and further into Austria. We follow the road ahead towards St. Paul, St. Andri and Wolfsberg. In Wolfsberg we head towards Bad St. Leonhard and further towards St. Peter. Further, we follow the description from Gorenjska.
C) From the Štajerska side we drive to Maribor and further over the border crossing Šentilj into Austria. We follow the highway in the direction of Celovec / Klagenfurt. We leave the highway in the direction of the exit Bad St. Leonhard. Further, we follow the description from Gorenjska.
D) Access from Austria: First, we drive to Judenburg, which is situated by the river Muri / Mur in Austria. Further, we drive to the south part of the town, where we notice a hospital. Near the hospital a mountain road branches off towards Seetaler Alps. The road is marked with signs "Seetaler strasse". We follow the nice and initially asphalted road towards the signs for Winterleiten Hütte. We park on the large parking lot before the road closure.

Path description:
From the parking lot, we continue on the road which is closed with a gate. After a short ascent on the road we come out of the forest, where in front of us we notice a lake and to the right of it a hut.
Next we continue on the left side of the lake past the chapel in the direction of "Lukas Max - steig". We follow the path, which ascends only gently, ahead on a slightly vegetated slope. The path then moderately ascends for a short time and brings us to the upper Winterleiten lake.
Next follows the crossing of a wide stream, then the path turns left by the lake. This part of the path is quite swampy, so we must be careful not to get wet.
The path ahead again starts to ascend slightly and brings us to a junction, where we again continue in the direction of "Lukas Max - steig". Next follows the crossing of a few smaller streams on a quite muddy path. The path ahead slowly turns towards the left and continues through nice high-mountain terrain full of streams. The path then slowly transitions to more rocky terrain, where we leave a nice little valley and small springs. The path ahead ascends more steeply through the rocky terrain and after 20 minutes of ascent brings us to a panoramic saddle.
We continue right upwards along the ridge. The path along the somewhat steeper ridge lasts only a few minutes, then it turns left and in a gentle ascent crosses the slopes of Scharfes Eck. At the end of the crossing the path brings us to a junction, where we continue straight ahead (slightly left) in the direction of Zirbitzkogel (right Scharfes Eck). Next follows a few minutes of walking on the flat wide ridge. The path ahead transitions to the summit slopes of Zirbitzkogel and starts to ascend moderately. After a short ascent we reach the hut, which is located only a few meters below the summit.

On the way: Winterleiten Hutte (Seetaler Alps) (1782m), Gr. Winterleiten See (Seetaler Alps) (1840m)

Trip can be extended to: Scharfes Eck (Seetal Alps) , Zirbitzkogel (Seetal Alps) ( 2 min)