My 5 top trails: Eric Haufe's alpine freeride favourites
Text: Eric Haufe / Gitta Beimfohr
Monte Roisetta
Valais Alps / Aosta
For me, it is perhaps the best trail in the Alps - however, you have to be able and willing to cover a hefty 2500 metres of altitude difference by bike & hike beforehand. But then a really wild and seemingly never-ending descent starts at the southern summit of Monte Roisetta (3324 m): easy hairpin bends, sand surfing à la Terres Noires, technical tinkering passages, ridge waving and at the end a big, equally challenging, rooty finale in the forest.
Kanin trails
Julian Alps / Slovenian
The Kanin massif on the border between Italian Friuli and the Julian Alps in Slovenia is a real gem in terms of landscape: karstic stone desert, geological wonder, theatre of war and a trail paradise in the middle of it all. No matter which direction you take from up here, the old military and hunting trails wind their way through an open lunar landscape and, at the end, through almost untouched forests. 2000 metres in depth, crisp from top to bottom. Wow, terrific.
Plöckenpass
Carnic Alps
Lovely Alpine pastures and forests - that's how the Italian-Austrian border mountain range looks from afar. But once you're in the middle of it, between Val Aupa and Plöckenpass, it really gets down to business: wild, rugged and steep. An area for which you should have solid bike skills. Then you can enjoy the gritty downhill trails in these lonely mountains, but also the views towards Triglav and over the Großglockner to the Mediterranean, in full manoeuvres.
Cima Collecchio
Trentino / Italy
For me, it is one of the most balanced trails in the Northern Alps. At the top (2957 m), the view stretches from the glaciated Adamello peaks to Lago Corvo. Sweet! Then the descent: the first 550 metres downhill are dusty and technical over black and red earth. A short minestrone break in the hut before heading towards the tree line with pure flow. Once in the forest, it's pure mountain bike brain jogging, as the trail requires countless combinations of movements.
Queyras
Southern Alps / France
Endless enduro - perhaps the best place for this? In my opinion, in the furthest corner of the French Southern Alps, on the border with the Italian Piedmont. Thousands of kilometres of trails were created here by traders, shepherds, partisans and soldiers from the valley floors to the summits. Perfect in their design, grandiose in their execution. In addition, wild, high alpine peaks, wide high valleys and glowing larch forests form a scenic synthesis of the arts, which for me is unrivalled in the Alps.
Eric Haufe, trail guide: The guide from the Allgäu region has turned his passion into a profession. You can book his scouted super trail tours with him at Ride Alpine Trails. He has also founded an association at home with like-minded people such as Ines Thoma and Max Schumann to legalise a trail network in the Bavarian Alps. Info: ridealpinetrails.com and mtballgaeu.de
