Großglockner

Großglockner

The Grossglockner, or simply Glockner, is Austria's highest mountain, at 3,798 meters above the Adriatic Sea. It is the highest mountain in the Alps east of the Brenner Pass. It is part of the larger Glockner group of the Hohe Tauern mountains, which lie along the main ridge of the Middle Eastern Alps and the dividing line of the Alps. On the eastern slope of the Grossglockner lies the Pasterze, Austria's most extensive glacier. The distinctive pyramid-shaped peak is actually made up of two peaks, the Grossglockner and the Kleinglockner, separated by the Glocknerscharte col. The history of climbing the mountain began with the French-born natural scientist Belsazar Hacquet, who was professor of anatomy at the Academy of Ljubljana from 1773. Between 1779 and 1781, he travelled in the Eastern Alps and in 1783 published a route plan describing Mount Glokner and stating that it had not yet been climbed. He estimated the altitude of the mountain at 3793 m and left behind an engraving illustrating Grossglockner and Pasterze. This is the first known depiction of the mountain. Mass tourism was largely promoted by the scenic High Alpine Road from Heiligenblut to Bruck in Salzburg, which leads to the Franz-Josefs-Höhe lookout. Built between 1930 and 1935, it was designed by engineer Franz Wallack and crosses the historic Hochtor Pass on the dividing line of the Alps. The pass, Austria's highest mountain pass at 2,576 m, is one of the country's most popular tourist attractions, with around 270,000 vehicles and 900,000 visitors a year, and some 50 million since it opened.