Jakobsweg Isar-Loisach-Leutascher Ache-Inn

At a glance

• Start / Finish: Schäftlarn Abbey (Upper Bavaria) / Mötz in the Tyrolean upper Inn valley
• Length: 133.3 km
• Duration: 7 days
• Elevation: ↗ 1,748 m / ↘ 1,529 m
• Highest point: 1,309 m; lowest point 556 m
• Stages: 7 (Camino Ninja division; the trail body splits it into 12 sections that are not day stages)
• Countries: Germany (Bavaria) and Austria (Tyrol) — border crossing in the Leutasch Gorge
• Responsible body: Verein zur Förderung des Jakobswegs Isar-Loisach-Leutascher Ache-Inn e.V., based in Kochel am See; opened 12 June 2010
• Waymarking: yellow scallop shell on blue
• St James church: St. Jakob in Walchensee, a place of worship since 1291
• Hostels: none — inns, guesthouses, private rooms; no pilgrim passport required
• Connection north: Münchner Jakobsweg in Schäftlarn, Voralpiner Jakobsweg in Beuerberg
• Connection south: in Mötz the Tyrolean Way of St James, part of the Jakobsweg Österreich
• Best time: June to October; quietest in June and September

Overview

This trail begins at a suburban railway station and ends on a pilgrimage hill above the Inn. From Schäftlarn Abbey, founded on the Isar in 762 by a priest named Waltrich, you walk downstream to Wolfratshausen, where the Loisach and Isar meet, and via Beuerberg Abbey up into the pre-Alpine country to Benediktbeuern, whose baroque basilica stands in front of the Benediktenwand. From Kochel it gets serious: in hairpins you climb the old Kesselberg road to Lake Walchensee, 200 metres higher, turquoise, with a St James church on its shore documented since 1291. Via Wallgau, Krün and the hummocky Buckelwiesen meadows you reach Mittenwald, and then comes a border crossing no other Way of St James can match: through the Leutasch Gorge beside the roaring river up into the high valley of Leutasch. The last day leads across the Seefeld plateau to Mösern, where the Peace Bell rings daily at 5 pm, down to Telfs and one final time uphill to the pilgrimage church of Maria Locherboden above Mötz.

The name is unwieldy and precise all the same: four rivers, four landscapes, seven days. The trail is young — the association was founded in 2009, the opening was on 12 June 2010, funded by the INTERREG programme Bavaria–Austria — but it runs on old ground: over a trade road a duke had opened in 1492 for the Venice trade, past four monastic foundations between 762 and 1688, and through a high valley that has seen pilgrims since the 14th century. Frankly, it is not a hostel trail: there is not a single pilgrim hostel, you sleep in inns and pay Upper Bavarian and Tyrolean prices for it. In return, hardly any Alpine trail starts as conveniently and hardly any ends as well: in Mötz you stand on the Tyrolean Way of St James, and the Arlberg lies ahead.

Other names

The trail body writes Jakobsweg Isar – Loisach – Leutascher Ache – Inn, with spaces around the dashes; the common short form is Jakobsweg Isar–Inn, and on the Tyrolean side you often just hear "the Way of St James through the Leutasch valley". The four rivers are the trail's structure: you set off along the Isar, switch at Wolfratshausen into the valley of the Loisach, follow the Leutascher Ache from Mittenwald into Tyrol and finish above the Inn. In the Camino Ninja database the route carries the suffix "Hard" — that is our internal system, not a name used by the association.

And because names cause confusion here: the trail body has exactly one official route, and it goes over the Kesselberg and Lake Walchensee — an "easy" valley variant through the Loisach valley does not exist; only detours around the Kesselberg and the Leutasch Gorge for cyclists are documented. Our 48 waypoints match the official course with one deviation: our route crosses the hills via Faistenberg and Nantesbuch and leaves out Penzberg, an official stage town with a stamp station in the town hall. The trail body quotes "around 125 kilometres", Wikipedia 130, our route data measures 133.3 kilometres — the stages below are calibrated exactly to that.

Ideal for — and not so much for

This trail is ideal if you want to walk from the outskirts of a city of millions into the high mountains in one week — the S7 drops you at the abbey in the morning, seven days later you stand at 1,100 metres in the Leutasch. Ideal if monasteries interest you: four lie on 133 kilometres — Schäftlarn, Beuerberg, Benediktbeuern and the Klösterl on Lake Walchensee. Ideal if you want an Alpine feel without high-mountain tours: the highest point is 1,309 metres, you need neither crampons nor rope. And ideal if you like trails that lead somewhere — in Mötz you don't finish, you change lines.

Frankly, though, it is not for you if you are looking for classic hostel pilgrimage: there is no pilgrim hostel here, the trail body says so itself, and that is why you don't need a pilgrim passport either — you stay in inns and guesthouses at holiday-region prices. Not for you either if you need solitude: between Lake Kochelsee and Mittenwald you walk through one of Germany's most visited holiday regions, and on fine weekends Lake Walchensee and the gorge are busy. And if 31 kilometres with 1,250 metres of descent on the last day are too much for you: the final stage is exactly that. Such stages are planned away beforehand, not on the trail — Mösern and Telfs have beds.

Route & landscape

The first day is the gentlest. From Schäftlarn Abbey you walk south along the Isar, through Aumühle to Wolfratshausen, where Loisach and Isar meet, on via Gelting and Achmühle to Beuerberg — floodplain, gravel banks, riverside woodland, the mountains growing only slowly on the horizon. On day two you leave the valley, cross the hills near Faistenberg and Nantesbuch and come via Bichl to Benediktbeuern, where the baroque basilica stands in front of the Benediktenwand. That is the moment the trail stops being a river walk. From Kochel am See you climb in hairpins up the old Kesselberg road — the very road Duke Albrecht IV had built in 1492 — and suddenly stand at Lake Walchensee, 200 metres above Lake Kochelsee.

You follow its shore past the Klösterl and the Zwergern peninsula to Wallgau and via Krün into the upper Isar valley, which is a different valley up here: Buckelwiesen meadows, Karwendel walls, views of the Wetterstein. In Mittenwald Bavaria ends. The border crossing is the most spectacular section of the whole route: up through the Leutasch Gorge beside the Leutascher Ache, past the ruins of the Porta Claudia, into the high valley of Leutasch at around 1,100 metres. The last day is a long one: across the Seefeld plateau — larch forest, painted farmhouses, the Hohe Munde at your back — to Mösern, then the trail drops via Telfs into the Inn valley, and right at the end you climb once more, along a meditation path with twelve stations to the pilgrimage church of Maria Locherboden high above Mötz. From there you look across to Stams, where the Tyrolean Way of St James carries on.

Stages, terrain & difficulty

The association divides the trail into twelve sections and says itself that these are not day walks — one is 1.5 kilometres long, another 30.7. We combine them into seven day stages, each ending in a place with beds, and the total is calibrated exactly to the 133.3 kilometres of our route data. If you split the final stage — overnight in Mösern or Telfs — you get eight relaxed days; that is exactly how we would do it.

1. Schäftlarn Abbey – Wolfratshausen – Gelting – Beuerberg (18.4 km) — Isar meadows, confluence of Loisach and Isar, Beuerberg Abbey.
2. Beuerberg – Faistenberg – Nantesbuch – Bichl – Benediktbeuern (24.2 km) — pre-Alpine hills, edge of the moor, baroque basilica in front of the Benediktenwand.
3. Benediktbeuern – Kochel – Kesselberg – Walchensee (19.9 km) — Loisach-Kochelsee moor, then some 500 metres of hairpins on the old trade road; St James church at the finish.
4. Walchensee – Klösterl – Zwergern – Einsiedl – Wallgau (12.4 km) — lakeshore path, hermit monastery, peninsula with St. Margareth; short day.
5. Wallgau – Krün – Mittenwald (11.9 km) — Buckelwiesen, Maria Rast chapel, violin-makers' town; short day.
6. Mittenwald – Leutasch Gorge – Kirchplatzl (Oberleutasch) (15.2 km) — steel walkways in the gorge, Porta Claudia, border, Magdalenakirche.
7. Kirchplatzl – Mösern – Telfs – Locherboden – Mötz (31.3 km) — Seefeld plateau, Peace Bell, descent into the Inn valley, pilgrimage church; can be split at Mösern or Telfs.

Difficulty: moderate. On the first two days you walk on forest and farm tracks with a noticeable share of asphalt — between Gelting and Achmühle, for instance, on the foot and cycle path along the main road. From the Kesselberg on it turns Alpine: narrow paths, roots, steps, steel walkways in the gorge with a one-way rule that runs in trail direction Mittenwald → Leutasch. Three places cost strength: the Kesselberg with some 500 metres of climbing in one go, the ascent from Mittenwald into the Leutasch valley and the final stage with over 1,200 metres of descent from the plateau into the Inn valley — poles are no mere ornament here. The gorge is closed in winter, and snow lies late into spring on the Kesselberg. Water and refreshment are available almost everywhere; the longest stretch without a village is the Kesselberg itself.

A duke, a wine merchant and the mountain in between

Why does this Way of St James go over the Kesselberg instead of comfortably through the Loisach valley? The answer is not in the landscape but in the documents. In 1487, after a dispute with the Bolzano authorities, the Venetian merchants moved their main market from Bolzano to Mittenwald — overnight the village below the Karwendel became an international trading hub, and Munich wanted a share of that trade. So Duke Albrecht IV of Bavaria-Munich had the mule track over the Kesselberg upgraded to a carriage road in 1492. The builder was not an engineer but the Munich councillor and wine merchant Heinrich Barth, a man who knew what would travel on this road. In the same year the duke and Benediktbeuern Abbey jointly set up a customs post in Kochel; it lasted until 1557. The Bolzano market stayed in Mittenwald until 1679. The road stayed longer: under Elector Max III Joseph it was blasted into a proper highway in 1745–1777, and under Prince Regent Luitpold in 1893–1897 it was doubled from 2.9 to 5.8 kilometres and its gradient eased from 25 to 5 per cent. The hairpins you climb on stage 3 are the old alignment.

And exactly where the road leads stands the St James church: St. Jakob in Walchensee, a place of worship since 1291, the present building from the 17th century, remodelled in baroque style in 1712/14, high altar from 1780. A dedication is a clue, not proof — frankly, not a single named Santiago pilgrim is recorded for this corridor, and the oldest tangible pilgrim testimony in the wider region is a graffito from 1604 in the church of Obsaurs, a hundred kilometres further west on the Tyrolean Way of St James. What is certain: a St James church from 1291 on the lake, a trade road from 1492 over the pass, and on the plateau a pilgrim traffic ever since the miracle of the host occurred in neighbouring Seefeld in 1384. The trail follows the trade road, not the river — and today's pilgrim crosses a mountain that commerce opened.

Highlights along the way

• Schäftlarn Abbey — founded in 762 by the priest Waltrich, extinguished after the Hungarian invasions, refounded in 1140 by Bishop Otto of Freising as a Premonstratensian house, abbey from 1598; rococo church by François Cuvilliés the Elder, Johann Michael Fischer, Johann Baptist Zimmermann and Johann Baptist Straub, consecrated 1760; Benedictines again since 1866.
• Beuerberg Abbey — Augustinian canons' house with a papal bull of confirmation dated 30 March 1121; church rebuilt by Isaak Bader after the collapse of 1628 on the model of St. Michael in Munich; Visitandine sisters from 1835 to 2014, exhibitions of the Freising Diocesan Museum since 2016.
• Benediktbeuern Abbey — foundation legend of 740 by the brothers Lantfrid, Waldram and Eliland, dated by scholars to the 760s; basilica 1708–1718, minor basilica since 1972; the Carmina Burana manuscript was discovered here in 1803, and Joseph von Fraunhofer did his research in the glassworks in 1808–1818; Salesians of Don Bosco since 1930.
• Franz Marc Museum, Kochel — the painter and his wife are buried in the cemetery next door.
• Kesselbergstraße — the trade road of 1492, built by Heinrich Barth; today your climb to Lake Walchensee.
• St. Jakob in Walchensee — a place of worship since 1291, dedicated to St James the Greater; high altar 1780, 14 Stations of the Cross from the 18th century; a filial church beside St. Ulrich since 1955.
• Klösterl on Lake Walchensee — founded in 1688 by Wolfgang Holzer for Italian Hieronymite hermits, St Anna chapel 1689; dissolved in 1725 after a dispute with Benediktbeuern over hunting, fishing and beer; baroque remodelling by Johann Michael Fischer, altarpiece by Cosmas Damian Asam; today a youth education centre, chapel open on summer Sundays.
• Walchensee power station — commissioned on 24 January 1924, 124 megawatts, initiated by Oskar von Miller; uses the 200-metre drop to Lake Kochelsee.
• Zwergern peninsula — St. Margareth, the oldest church on the lake; Lovis Corinth painted here in 1918–1925, and the Walchensee Museum shows 111 of his prints.
• Mittenwald — seat of the Bolzano market 1487–1679; Matthias Klotz (1653–1743) brought violin-making back from his journeyman years in Padua, and the Geigenbaumuseum shows around 200 instruments; Goethe compared the Lüftlmalerei façade paintings to a picture book; the "Pilgerhaus", where Luther supposedly lodged in 1511 — local tradition.
• Leutasch Gorge — border crossing into Tyrol on steel walkways, ruins of the Porta Claudia; the Klammgeistweg is free of charge.
• Magdalenakirche in Kirchplatzl — first mentioned in 1190 as a church of Polling Abbey, tower around 1508, oldest bell 1482, rebuilt 1820/21 with frescoes by Leopold Puellacher.
• Peace Bell of the Alpine Region, Mösern — 10,450 kilograms, cast by Grassmayr in Innsbruck, inscription "Für die gute Nachbarschaft und den Frieden der Alpenländer" (for good neighbourliness and peace among the Alpine countries); rings daily at 5 pm for five minutes; recast and relocated in 2023 after fine cracks.
• Maria Locherboden above Mötz — a miner's image of the Virgin from around 1740, healing of Maria Kalb in 1871, neo-Gothic church 1896–1916, concrete chapel for the night pilgrimage from 1996 (Gerold Wiederin, Helmut Federle); suspension bridge over the Inn to Stams since 1935.

How pilgrims reach this trail

The classic approach is the Münchner Jakobsweg: it begins at St James' church in Munich, and its first stage town is Schäftlarn Abbey — exactly where this trail starts. Anyone walking out of Munich thus stands at the fork after barely a day: westwards via Andechs, Wessobrunn and the Wieskirche to Lake Constance — or southwards along Isar and Loisach into the mountains. The second feeder crosses at Beuerberg Abbey: there the Voralpiner Jakobsweg arrives, coming from Salzburg via Dietramszell and carrying on via Bernried and Polling to the Hoher Peißenberg; older sources call it the "Südostbayerischer Jakobsweg". Anyone arriving from the east joins at Beuerberg and skips the opening.

And then there is the pragmatic variant: the S7 from Munich stops at Ebenhausen-Schäftlarn and Höllriegelskreuth, and from either station you are at the abbey in under half an hour. Many walk the trail exactly like that — as weekend building blocks, because almost every stage town has a rail or bus link: Wolfratshausen on the S7, Bichl, Benediktbeuern and Kochel on the Kochelseebahn, Mittenwald on the Mittenwaldbahn, Leutasch and Telfs by bus. The Catholic adult-education centres of Bad Tölz-Wolfratshausen and Garmisch-Partenkirchen offer guided day pilgrimages if you want to get to know the trail in pieces first.

Carrying on?

In Mötz the trail does not end, it is handed over. The village lies on the Tyrolean Way of St James — with us part of the Jakobsweg Österreich, which runs from Wolfsthal on the Slovak border via Vienna, Linz, Salzburg and Innsbruck to Rankweil. From Mötz you continue westwards via Stams, Silz, Imst and Landeck to the Arlberg and on to Feldkirch; from the Locherboden pilgrimage church a suspension bridge has crossed the Inn to Stams and its Cistercian abbey since 1935 — that is practically the first step of the continuation. Beyond Rankweil the Swiss Via Jacobi awaits, and eventually you stand in Geneva, in Le Puy or in Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port.

You can also turn around in Mötz and walk east to Innsbruck, arriving at the cathedral of St. Jakob — where the Jakobsweg Brenner also arrives, coming up from South Tyrol over the pass, and behind it the Jakobsweg Südtirol. Innsbruck was already in the Middle Ages the hub where pilgrims from the east and pilgrims from the Brenner met. This trail is a building block, not a terminus.

And there is a third direction: across the river, at Stams, the Jakobsweg Tirol-Allgäu begins and passes right by Mötz at its kilometre 3.4 — 137 kilometres over the Fernpass, Gaichtpass and Oberjoch to Zell near Oberstaufen, where it joins the Münchner Jakobsweg to Lindau. If you have come from Bavaria, this takes you back over the mountains to Lake Constance.

Preparation & practicalities

The season runs from June to October. The Kesselberg and the Leutasch valley are high enough for snow to lie late into spring, and the Leutasch Gorge is closed in winter; in July and August Lake Walchensee and the gorge are crowded — if you can, go in June or September and you get the same landscape with half the people. There are no pilgrim hostels. The trail body says so itself and adds that every village offers "suitable lodgings from private rooms to hotels"; pilgrim-friendly houses are marked. In practice that means inn, guesthouse, holiday flat, private room. In Wallgau, Krün, Mittenwald and Leutasch the choice is wide but booked out early in high season and at weekends — reserve the nights at Lake Walchensee and in the Leutasch in advance. The easiest way to plan your stages and lodgings is directly in the Camino Ninja app.

You do not need a pilgrim passport here, because there are no hostels; the trail body provides a brochure with stamp fields, and you get stamps in monasteries, tourist offices and, for instance, in Penzberg town hall. If you walk the trail as a building block towards Santiago, take your European pilgrim passport anyway. The waymarking is the yellow scallop on blue; there is no dedicated hiking map, the trail body provides printable stage sheets and GPS data, plus the guidebook by Janina and Markus Meier from Conrad Stein Verlag (96 pages, €9.90, as of September 2026). There is no luggage transport between the villages — you carry everything yourself. Equipment: sturdy shoes with grip for the steep descents from the Kesselberg and from the plateau into the Inn valley, rain gear because the weather changes fast in the Karwendel, and poles for the 1,250 metres of descent on the last day. Language and money: German and euros on both sides — you only notice the border in the gorge by the sign.

What this trail costs

Frankly, this is not a budget camino. You walk through the Tölzer Land, to Lake Walchensee, to Mittenwald and onto the Seefeld plateau — four holiday regions with matching prices and without a hostel network to keep costs down. The following figures are experience-based guide values, not official rates (as of September 2026). In a double room at an inn or guesthouse reckon with roughly €45–75 per person per night, alone in a single room rather €60–100; in Mittenwald and around Seefeld it is higher in high season, and almost everywhere a visitor's tax per night is added. Dinner at an inn usually costs €15–25; snacks and shopping are available almost everywhere between Wolfratshausen and Telfs.

Realistic daily budget: €70–110 per person in a double room without extras, correspondingly more with a single room; for seven stages roughly €500–800, excluding travel and equipment. Admission fees are the smallest item: the Klammgeistweg through the Leutasch Gorge — your pilgrim path — is free, because it was financed from public funds including EU money; only the lower Wasserfallsteig is privately run and costs €4 for adults, €2 for children (as of September 2026) — you don't need it for the trail. Allow a few euros for the Geigenbaumuseum, the Franz Marc Museum and the Walchensee Museum. Monasteries and churches cost nothing.

Getting there

To the start (Schäftlarn Abbey): take the S7 from Munich main station or Ostbahnhof to Ebenhausen-Schäftlarn, around 35 minutes, then about 25 minutes on foot down to the abbey; the Deutschlandticket is valid. If you prefer a little more Isar, get off one stop earlier at Höllriegelskreuth and walk the last kilometres in the Isar valley — that is also the end of the first stage of the Münchner Jakobsweg. By car via the A95. The nearest airport is Munich.

Along the way: almost every stage town has a connection — Wolfratshausen (S7), Bichl, Benediktbeuern and Kochel (Kochelseebahn), Mittenwald (Mittenwaldbahn Munich–Innsbruck), Leutasch and Telfs by bus. So the trail can easily be walked in weekend sections or abandoned at any point.

From the finish (Mötz): Mötz lies on the Arlbergbahn and is served by regional trains; to Innsbruck Hbf you need half an hour to three-quarters of an hour depending on the connection, and from there long-distance trains run hourly to Munich, Salzburg, Vienna and Zurich. Neighbouring stations: Silz, Stams, Ötztal-Bahnhof. By car: Inntal motorway A12, exit Mötz.

• Rail Germany: bahn.de — Munich, Wolfratshausen, Kochel, Mittenwald
• Rail Austria: oebb.at — Mötz, Telfs, Innsbruck
• Trail body, stage sheets, GPS, stamp brochure: auf-dem-jakobsweg.info — Verein zur Förderung des Jakobswegs Isar-Loisach-Leutascher Ache-Inn
• Note: a one-way rule applies in the Leutasch Gorge in trail direction; the gorge is closed in winter