From the Madlener Haus lodge, follow the little track upward to the Silvretta high-alpine road. Follow it for a short while to the right and then walk directly alongside the dam wall of the enormous Silvretta reservoir until trail 02 branches off to the left along a somewhat broader hiking trail. Here, you will cross the border from Vorarlberg into Tyrol. At the Bielbach stream, the trail splits in two. Follow the left-hand trail alongside the stream on the left-hand bank into the valley. The route continues for a while on an almost even course but then climbs steeply up below the "Runde Kopf" in sharp bends. After approx. 300 metres in altitude, it becomes flatter again and the trail leads along the stream through the damp Hochtal valley. At the fork in the road, keep to the left and climb now along a steeper course towards the Getschnerscharte. The last stretch of the climb leads in part over the snowfields of the Madlenerferner glacier steeply upward to the Getschnerscharte at 2,839m (approx. 4h 10min). Between the Middle and Lower Getschnerspitze peaks, climb steeply downward now, mainly over a few remaining snowfields. Continue down with a view into the Jamtal valley below the Madlenerspitze peak and the Gletschnerferner glacier embedded in its cirque. Finally, cross the Jambach stream to arrive at the Jamtal Hut (1h 40min from the Getschnerscharte).
(Christina Schwann, OeAV)

The Via Alpina trail route may not lead directly into the town of Galtür, but it can be reached either on public transport from the Bielerhöhe pass or on foot through the Jamtal valley. The Tyrolean winter sports resort of Galtür, which is small but has always been treasured for its special quality, was laid to waste on 23 February 1999 by a gigantic dust avalanche. 31 people lost their lives in the tragic accident. Until that point, Galtür had been considered to be secure against avalanches. In the 600-year chronicle of the town, there had not been a catastrophe of the like. Naturally, there were always occasional avalanches, but none ever came even close to reaching the town – until that day in February. The accident was by no means foreseeable, but rather a chain of several fatal circumstances that had already started four weeks beforehand: in the northern Atlantic, unusually violent storms broke out and one precipitation front after the other moved in the direction of the northern Alps. Up to four metres of new snow fell over the next four weeks in Galtür. First of all, extremely dry powder snow fell due to the extreme cold, which as a supporting layer was scarcely able to bind the snow lying above it. Finally there were also violent winds that caused immense snow drifts in the high mountains. All of these separate events finally led to the worst avalanche accident in the Alps: the edge broken off on the Sonnberg peak was approx. 500m wide and the snow was about 2.5 to 3.5m deep. 330,000 tonnes of snow rushed down at a speed of over 350 kilometres per hour onto the little town. The people in Galtür have since had to live with this misfortune. The newly established Alpinarium is to contribute towards this. Not just because the construction is part of a massive wall that in addition to approx. 2,000 running metres of steel avalanche barriers on the Sonnenberg was erected to protect the village, but also because the Alpinarium deals with the castastrophe and offers people a way to come to terms with the past. The Lorenz family from Galtür has been running the Jamtal Hut for four generations. The hut was closed during World War I but it was extended and modernised as early as 1929/32. A drinking water pipeline was laid in addition to the installation of a hot air heating run on coal, while a little electricity plant supplies the necessary current. Today, the hut above all struggles with the rock masses that are released by the receding glacier and that exert enormous alluvial pressure.
(Christina Schwann, OeAV)