The best running trails around Damüls

The Seven Hills Trail (11.7 km, 480 m elevation gain, approx. 4 hours) is a stunning loop hike! The first 1.5 km climbs directly beneath the chairlift, giving your lungs and climbing legs a real workout. But once you reach the top, it's three to four hours of pure bliss. What makes it so special? The view of mighty peaks all around you? The winding paths that gently ascend and descend? Or the scent of the lush green vegetation? It's simply everything. Every bend reveals a new landscape: babbling mountain streams, colorful fields of flowers, steep slopes, and much more. You'll be captivated. We hiked it in the summer, and the heat made it quite challenging. If you're sensitive to that (like me), then leave early in the morning. That way, you'll get the most out of this beautiful hike. Highly recommended!

There's an inn here with a large panoramic restaurant and sun terrace. Along the road, there's a smaller building with a terrace.

The square is also home to one of the famous swings in the Damüls region. https://www.damuels.at/de/walsertal/das-land-der-schaukeln.html

At some point, the path begins to tell its own story. Perhaps after the third hill, when your view has become accustomed to the expanse, or after the sixth, when your legs feel heavier but your heart lighter. The Seven Hills Trail isn't one of those marked triumphal paths, not a summit selfie spot with guaranteed mountain hut fun. It's a quiet, wild, almost wise-looking ridge path – one that promises nothing but delivers everything. In the golden light of late summer, the grass looks like time turned inside out. Dry, rough, scoured by the wind. The path winds over boggy hilltops and rugged ridges, past gnarled spruce trees that stand like silent border posts between valleys and heavens. Those who walk here leave the familiar behind for a few hours. On the left, the view down into the Damüls basin, on the right, wanderlust as far as the Arlberg, and somewhere in between, the inner compass readjusts. The wind carries stories—from the Portlahorn, perhaps, or the Elsenkopf. Old stones don't talk much, but they remember who's been here. Some hikers walk with dogs, others with hats. Some talk, others are silent. Everyone becomes quieter the further they go. And that's a good thing. In the evening, when the shadows of the hills fall over the last few meters of the path, you know you haven't just been for a stroll. You've been on the move—outside and within yourself. Anyone who has climbed all seven hills has found more than just the way back.

And then it lies down there like a forgotten eye of the landscape: Lake Süns. Dark and round, framed by undulating meadows where summer dwells. No noise, no boats, no paths that claim to lead to the shore. The lake simply looks back – as if you yourself were the stranger in a story that has been told here for much longer. Whoever reaches the pass stands on a line between worlds. Behind you is the lake, in front of you the path to the peak – and to the side, the view stretches far down, where the Rhine Valley disappears. On a clear day, some say you can see Lake Constance. I think you see yourself above all – smaller, but also lighter than you thought. It's not the grand gestures that characterize this hike. It's the way the light clings to the slopes, the way the wind accompanies the path, the way the trail doesn't lead you but invites you. And anyone standing up there—between the Ragazer Grat, the Sünser Joch, and the dark blue of the small lake—may notice: The most beautiful places don't scream. They whisper.

There are paths that don't simply go from A to B – they go to the border between inside and outside. The Hochblanken ridge is such a path. It winds through meadows, past rocky outcrops, and suddenly the world opens up. Not spectacularly. But quietly. Your gaze sweeps like a tired bird over valleys and hills, groping its way along the contours of the Vorarlberg Alps, lingering on an alpine hut, on the edges of cliffs, on the dark patches of forest. Up here, there's no shouting. No posting. Here, you look – and perhaps marvel. At the peace, at the balance of things, at what no longer needs to be explained. The wind carries nothing with it except the suspicion that everything could be different. And that's precisely why you stop, look back once more, say nothing – and then move on. Because what else can you say when, for a moment, the world lies so completely before you?

There are mountains that express their essence not in height, but in line. Hochblanken is one such example. Not a colossus, not a granite hero. But a draftsman in the green. With a delicate touch, he has embedded himself in the landscape – like a last thought before falling asleep, like a sentence that hangs in the air and yet never fades away. The path stretches toward you, at first wide and inviting, then narrower, more concentrated, almost timid. You don't simply climb – you feel your way inside. Into what this ridge has to say. The grass gives way, the slopes dip, ledges of rock cut sharply through the flanks – as if the mountain wanted to show that beauty is sometimes a matter of attitude. And of slant. Whoever stands at the top hasn't conquered a cross, but has understood a line. The ridge is narrow, the view far. In front of you is the Damülser Mittagsspitze, behind you the Hohes Licht – names as if painted. And all around: a wreath of hills, alpine pastures, and paths, nestling against the sky, as if the Allgäu region were once aspiring to be an Alpine poet. The wind blows through your head like a good thought. No noise, no pushing, just this airy clarity that makes you forget for a moment what time it is. And how rare such silence has become. The Hochblanken doesn't say much. But what it says remains.

Nice seating under the roof, friendly people who run it and leave something for you to drink even late at night. I'll be back.