Grossglockner (3798 m) The Roof of Austria

Four Slovak climbers made the very summit of Austrian Alps at 7.20 a.m. on Friday 11 June 2010. The Grossglockner (German: Großglockner, Slovene: Veliki Klek) is, at 3,798 m above sea level, Austria's highest mountain and the highest mountain in the Alps east of the Brenner Pass. This makes it, after Mont Blanc, the second most prominent mountain in the Alps, when measured by relative height. The Grossglockner is situated on the border between Carinthia and the East Tyrol; it is the highest peak in the Glockner group, a group of mountains along the main ridge of the Hohe Tauern. The summit itself lies on the Glockner ridge, which branches to the south off the main ridge. The Pasterze, Austria's biggest glacier, lies at the Grossglockner's foot. The characteristically pyramid-shaped peak actually consists of two pinnacles, the Großglockner and the Kleinglockner (3,770 m; klein means "small" in German), separated by a saddle-like formation known as the Glocknerscharte. The Hohe Tauern, the highest range of the Alps east of the Brenner Pass, includes the highest mountains in Austria. The range is part of the Central Eastern Alps. It is in the Austrian states of Salzburg, Carinthia, and Tyrol - with a small part in the Italian province of Bolzano-Bozen. The range is bounded by the Salzach valley to the north (separating it from the Kitzbühel Alps); the Mur valley and the Murtörl Pass to the east (separating it from the Niedere Tauern); the Drave valley to the south (separating it from the Southern Limestone Alps); and the Birnlücke pass to the west (separating it from the Zillertal Alps). The history of the climbs started with Belsazar Haquet, a scientific professor of Ljubljana. He travelled in the area in 1779-1781 and wrote a book in 1783 where he described the mountain and stated that it had not been climbed yet. Inspired by the book the local bishop, cardinal Franz Xaxer Salm-Reifferscheid, started efforts for an expedition and engaged two carpenters of Heiligenblut, Martin and Sepp Klotz, to do the first explorations for an ascent through the Leitertal valley, which is the side of Grossglockner with the least ice (people feared glaciers in these times). The two brothers did more than they were ordered to do - and probably reached the summit of the Kleinglockner on July 23, 1799. One month later the expedition of the cardinal started: a hut (the first Salm hut) was built and the path in the Leitertal valley was prepared so that the cardinal could use a horse to reach the hut. 30 people were part of the expedition. They suffered with bad weather. A first effort failed, but on August 25, 1799 the brothers Klotz and at least 4 other people reached - again the Kleinglockner. There they installed a cross (one of the main goals of the church expedition). The reports did not tell clearly that they had not touched the highest point but the cardinal (who had reached the Adlersruhe) was informed. He was not satisfied and invented another, even bigger expedition the next year. On July 27, 1800, 62 (!) people started again into the Leitertal valley. On July 28 the climb started. 4 carpenters (the brothers Klotz and two others who are not known) did a track in the snow and installed fixed ropes at some steeper sections up to the end of the Glocknerleitl. But only these four and P. Horasch, the local priest of the village Doellach, were able to cross the Obere Glocknerscharte and climb Grossglockner summit. The next day the carpenters and some others (among them Valentin Stani?, who climbed some weeks later Watzmann for the first time) did the climb again and installed the summit cross, now on the real summit. The first winter ascent of the Grossglockner was made on January 2, 1875 by William Adolf Baillie Grohman, a member of the Alpine Club.