In NL240 Mark Charlton reviewed Mike Wells’ guidebook to trekking Austria’s Adlerweg. Here, Mike describes how he came to write about it, first in 2012 with a second edition in 2023.

Preparation and research
In 2008, while working for a UK travel company, I went to Tirol to research some guided walking holidays for inclusion in their programme. I was an experienced mountain walker and had done many walks in the Alps, both one-day up and down excursions and multi-day long-distance hut-to-hut hikes. On that trip I came across a newly waymarked path - the Adlerweg, or Eagle’s Way. Later in the year, I read a newspaper article describing a walk on part of the Adlerweg. The journalist’s trip had been organised by Tirol Werbung, the state-owned marketing agency responsible for encouraging tourism in Tirol, and it was aimed at promoting the new path. Inspired to discover more, I contacted Tirol Werbung, who sent a small handbook and other literature with details about the Adlerweg. Further research added a German guidebook. My partner Christine and I joined Sektion Britannia and purchased the ÖAV maps needed to walk the route. We set out in August 2009 to walk across Tirol from St Johann to St Anton, a distance of 300km.

The walk took us 15 days, mainly in glorious sunshine. Staying in the mountains wherever possible, we visited 14 alpine club refuges for either lunch or an overnight stay. Navigation was partly by my German guidebook (difficult - I only speak basic German), but mostly by the ÖAV maps. Once we had finished, I said jokingly to Christine that someone ought to write an English guide. She replied “Why don’t you do it?”, which is what caused me to contact Cicerone and end up with a contract to write a guide to the Adlerweg - my first guidebook which has since led to ten more.

The return visit
Getting a contract was just the start; now I had to write it. I penned a couple of test pieces, part of the introduction and one example stage with a computer-generated route map. Once Cicerone had accepted my style it was down to writing in earnest. I always keep a trip diary when I walk so using this, aided by my memory and the ÖAV maps, I cranked out 23 stage descriptions. But it soon became obvious that this was not enough. Although Christine had taken many photographs, these were mostly from her mobile and not of print quality. Moreover, there were several variant stages that we had not followed but which needed to be included. There was no alternative; I had to return in 2010 to re-walk the whole route plus the variant stages and take lots of photos. In the meantime, Cicerone had contracted me to write a second book, a cycling guide to the Rhine Cycle Route. With two books to illustrate, I invested in an expensive SLR camera, and to avoid carrying 14 maps I purchased the ÖAV CD-ROM of all ÖAV maps and downloaded the relevant parts to take with me, a substantial saving in weight.>/p>

The window for walking the Adlerweg is short as the highest huts are snow-bound for nine months and open only from late June until early September. I went in August, initially for three weeks on my own to re-walk the route, checking my previously written stage descriptions and writing new ones for the variants. Christine was to join me for a fourth week when we intended to walk the most challenging part of the route - the eight stage Lechtaler Alpen Höhenweg high-level variant. I completed my solo walking, but after that things did not go well. On our third day together, Christine had an accident when an innocuous looking piece of path gave way, pitching her 10 metres down a steep slope and breaking her ankle in three places. Nassereith mountain rescue team stretchered her down to the valley below and an ambulance took her to hospital in Zams. The trip was over for her. Once she had recovered enough to be flown home, I continued the trip, but shortage of time meant the walk could not be completed. In order to finish the book, Cicerone pressed on with editing what I had already written and produced a suite of maps. They then held the book back until July 2011 when I was able to return to Tirol and walk the missing Höhenweg variant. The book was published a year late in 2012 and sold steadily if not spectacularly.

Over time, Tirol Werbung became aware of a number of problems with the Adlerweg. As funding is raised from every parish in Tirol, many places not on the route asked for the Adlerweg to be extended to serve them. This was addressed by adding 88 regional stages that ran from the main route to all parts of Tirol. Confusion arose when mapmakers added “Adlerweg” or the eagle motif to their walking maps without discriminating between main route, easier variants, alpine high route or regional extensions. With “Adlerweg” popping up all over it became difficult to identify the correct route. Moreover, there were path junctions with multiple directions signposted Adlerweg!

A second concern was a perceived lack of difficulty. In Tirol, paths are graded challenging, moderate or easy. The Adlerweg had four challenging and four easy stages with 15 graded moderate. I thought this was the right balance, but the feeling in Tirol was that the overall path was not challenging enough. In 2015, Tirol Werbung decided to address these concerns by re-vamping the Adlerweg. The regional paths were dropped and other stages diverted along more challenging routes. The easy stages through Lechtal were replaced with the challenging Lechtaler Alpen Höhenweg. My guidebook became instantly outdated.

The second edition
A new guide was needed, and in 2019 Cicerone asked for a second edition. But Covid intervened, international travel shut down, and mountain refuges introduced strict hygiene regulations and capacity limitations. I did the desk research but was unable to visit Tirol and walk the path again until August 2022. When I did go, I walked all the revised stages. Although now not part of the official route, I kept some of the previous stage descriptions to provide easier alternatives to the now more difficult route. The new route is 26km longer which, combined with greater difficulty that slows walking speed, results in an average of 18 days to complete the walk, compared to 15 previously. Technology has moved on too. The complete set of ÖAV maps is now available on a USB stick, while Tirol Werbung have provided a downloadable set of GPX tracks. Booking for many Alpenverein refuges is now done through a central booking website.

Writing a second edition should be easier than a first, but this did not seem to apply to my Adlerweg guide. It now has new maps, many new stages, and revised appendices making it almost unrecognisable from its predecessor. It is the only English language guide to this phenomenal route. If you are looking for a challenging walk crossing Tirol from end to end, then the Adlerweg is a route to consider.

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