Dutch Mountain Trail: 4 stages and when to book
The Netherlands’ one mountain walk, laid out by the Dutch Mountain Film Festival with a straight face: 101 km from Eygelshoven station to Maastricht station over the seven summits of Zuid-Limburg, none of them above 260 m and all of them earned on clay. Colliery hills, the Vaalserberg and its three borders, orchards, vineyards, a heritage railway, the Belgian Voerstreek, a foot ferry over the Maas and a quarry hill at the end. It is only partly waymarked, so the phone with the GPX is the map; it is wet, so poles are not optional; and it is the walk a Belgian or Dutch beginner can reach by train before lunch and use to find out whether four long days in a row are for them.
Start: Eygelshoven. Finish: Maastricht.
The 4 stages
| Day | Stage | Distance | Climb |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Eygelshoven → Vaals | 27.9 km | 573 m |
| 2 | Vaals → Gulpen | 23.6 km | 793 m |
| 3 | Gulpen → Mheer | 25.7 km | 1,000 m |
| 4 | Mheer → Maastricht | 23.1 km | 581 m |
The line is the trail’s OpenStreetMap relation chained end to end and cut at the guidebook’s four stage ends, 100.3 km against a published 101; every stage within 4% of the makers’ figure. Elevation comes from a terrain model, which reads 2,947 m of climbing where the makers say about 2,000: the shape is right, the total is the model’s, not a survey.
Book these first
No central booking: each hotel, B&B or campsite takes its own reservation, and a month ahead is plenty outside the long weekends.
- Vaals, at the end of the longest day: a small town with few beds close to the line
- Mheer and Noorbeek, a hamlet and a village: a handful of B&Bs and one campsite
- Gulpen on festival and long weekends (Ascension, Whitsun), when the whole Heuvelland is booked
The trail’s makers list accommodation along the route on the DMFF trail page; Visit Zuid-Limburg covers the rest.
Campsites at each stage end for walkers with a tent: Camping de Gastmolen at Vaals, a farm campsite at Gulpen, Camping Grensheuvel at Noorbeek near Mheer. Wild camping is illegal in the Netherlands.
When to go
Walkable all year; at its best from late April to October, which is also when the Eijsden ferry sails. The walkers’ write-ups pick late spring. From November to March the ferry stops, the last stage grows to 31 km over the Lixhe bridge, and the makers’ own name for the trail is the Dutch Mud Trail.
- JanuaryMud, short days, no ferry
- FebruaryLate winter, wet clay
- MarchThaw and the first green
- AprilFerry back, blossom in the orchards
- MayThe month the walkers pick
- JuneLongest days, warm plateau
- JulySummer heat on the open ground
- AugustHoliday season in the villages
- SeptemberFirm ground, autumn light
- OctoberColour in the beech, last ferry month
- NovemberDark, wet, and the ferry gone
- DecemberThe darkest month
Dutch Mountain Trail in Treksup
Dutch Mountain Trail is a paid route in Treksup: its full plan, with every stage, water, where to sleep and weekly trail conditions, comes with the paid tier. 7 routes are open in full for free.
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Page updated 30 September 2026.