Stillachtal (Stillach Valley)
The Stillach river moves quietly through its valley — quietly enough that the name stuck, a description of the water's temperament in the wide Oberstdorf basin before the mountains close in. The road south from town passes the Heini-Klopfer ski-flying hill, then the Fellhorn cable car station at Faistenoy, then Birgsau, and then the tarmac runs out. From there it's your feet and a path that follows the river another six or seven kilometres before the terrain turns serious.
At the far end of that walk stands Einödsbach, a mountain inn with settlement records going back to 1613 and a claim that matters on maps: Germany's southernmost permanently inhabited building. The valley holds all of this — a hydroelectric plant, a chapel dedicated to St. Catherine, a small wayside shrine to St. Wendelin the shepherd's patron — without making a fuss about any of it.
💛 What travellers fall for
People who come back tend to time the walk for a weekday morning, when the first three flat kilometres feel genuinely unhurried. They stop at the alpine dairy at Eschbach, note the old Lady Chapel, and pace themselves to reach Einödsbach for a late lunch. The Freibergsee, at 930 metres and 18 hectares, is the detour worth building a warm afternoon around.
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Book directly at the providerHow Stillachtal (Stillach Valley) came to be
The Stillach river appears in written records from 1424, making it one of the older documented waterways in the Allgäu. The valley it carves — also known as Birgsautal — was settled in pieces over the following two centuries. Einödsbach, at the valley's furthest reach, has records of permanent habitation from 1613, a date that anchors just how long people have chosen to live at the edge of what the landscape allows.
The municipality of Oberstdorf later built the Warmatsgundkraftwerk hydroelectric plant in the valley, threading modern infrastructure into terrain that had changed little for generations. Public transport arrived in the mid-1970s, extending a bus line to Faistenoy and eventually Birgsau — opening the valley to day visitors without altering the fact that the last stretch to Einödsbach still requires walking.
Who and what shaped it
Landmark buildings
Plan your visit
On the map
When to go
Summers are mild and the walking season runs roughly from late spring through early autumn, though afternoon thunderstorms are common in July and August. Winter brings heavy snow; the ski-flying hill comes into its own then, but the valley path beyond Birgsau is for experienced winter walkers only.
Right now
Background & history adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA) · specs from Wikidata (CC0) · weather from Open-Meteo · map data © OpenStreetMap contributors · photos from Wikimedia Commons / Unsplash with per-image credit. No third-party reviews or social posts reproduced.