Grossglockner

PeaksCarinthia,Austria

Austria's highest mountain, a 3,798-metre pyramid above the country's longest glacier, reached by a road of thirty-six hairpins built to put men back to work.

September·Edge of season

Sep–Oct

Hours shorten from 1 September and the larches turn gold below the ice as the first snows dust the passes; marmots head for hibernation. Everything still runs until the gates close in early November — 2 November this year.

Year-round Austria's highest peak and the Pasterze glacier stand year-round, but the High Alpine Road to their foot runs only from late April to early November; through winter the gates lock under deep snow.

Grossglockner is Austria's highest mountain, a 3,798-metre rock pyramid whose horn-shaped double summit stands above everything else in the Eastern Alps; the name means roughly "big bell." Down its eastern flank pours the Pasterze, the longest glacier in Austria at about 8.4 kilometres. It is melting fast: the tongue retreats several metres a year, and meltwater now gathers in a turquoise reservoir below the ice. The whole massif sits inside Hohe Tauern National Park, the largest protected area in the Alps, where chamois and ibex pick across the scree and reintroduced bearded vultures ride the updraughts. A prince-bishop's expedition first climbed the peak in 1800 and planted a summit cross; its successor still crowns the summit today. You do not have to be a climber to stand beneath it. From May to October the Grossglockner High Alpine Road winds to its foot in 36 hairpin bends over 48 kilometres, cresting at the Hochtor tunnel at 2,504 metres. From there a spur runs out to the Franz-Josefs-Höhe terrace, face to face with the glacier and the summit rising behind it. Built through the Depression and opened in 1935 as a job-creation scheme, the toll road is now Austria's second most-visited paid attraction after Schönbrunn Palace, drawing close to a million people a year. The air thins and sharpens as you rise; marmots whistle from the meadows, cowbells drift up from the pastures, and a cold wind slides straight off the ice. Through winter the gates lock and the road vanishes under deep snow.

Worth knowing

Good to know

The road runs only from early May to late October — but fresh snow can shut the high passes even in midsummer, so check the live road status the morning you drive up.
Come at first light — cloud and tour buses build through the day, and the glacier shows clearest from Franz-Josefs-Höhe before the afternoon haze settles over the ice.
One toll ticket covers the whole day — so drive the dead-end spurs too, up to the Edelweißspitze at 2,571 m, the road's highest point, and out to the glacier terrace.
Scan the scree above the meadows for marmots and ibex — and watch the ridgelines for bearded vultures, reintroduced here in the 1980s; bring binoculars, as they patrol high and far.
Dress for winter whatever the month — it can be shirt-sleeves in the valley and near freezing with a cutting wind at the passes, and the mountain weather here turns within an hour.

Things to do

1
Drive the High Alpine Road
The 48-kilometre climb from Bruck to Heiligenblut is the reason most people come, unfurling a fresh view at every one of its 36 hairpins. Lower down the road runs through open pastures loud with cowbells, where cattle graze among larch and alpenrose and marmots bolt between the rocks as cars pass. Higher it crosses bare alpine tundra to the Hochtor tunnel at 2,504 metres, cut in 1935; you emerge on the far side in Carinthia with the whole southern range and its glacier valleys opening ahead.
2
Camp at Heiligenblut under the pyramid peak
Alpine campgrounds and mountain huts scatter around Heiligenblut and the valley floor, where the pyramid peak fills the skyline at dawn and dusk. Away from the day-trippers' cars the nights fall silent but for wind and running meltwater, and on clear evenings the stars crowd a sky with almost nothing lit below.
3
Stop at the glacier terrace
The Franz-Josefs-Höhe terrace at the road's end looks straight down onto the Pasterze, Austria's longest glacier, with the Grossglockner rising behind it. A funicular drops from the terrace toward the ice, though it now stops well short of a glacier that has pulled steadily back down the valley.

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Nearby

57 km