Glacier trail to the Pasterze - discovery tours in the Hohe Tauern

With the Grossglockner High Alpine Road 🛣️, which is not without reason considered the most interesting, challenging, and scenically impressive pass (adventure) road 🏔️🤩, I and my "Mitsu" 🚗 fulfilled a not-so-small dream. It also played a significant role in my choosing the Hohe Tauern as my vacation destination in the first place. Thanks to the Summer Card 💳, we were allowed 🧌🚗 to have the experience for free 👌, thus saving ourselves the daily toll of 45 euros. Planned by just one man (Franz Wallack 👏) and opened in 1935 after only 5 years of construction 😲 (that would be 225 years by today's standards 😁), the road leads you through a total of 36 hairpin bends up to an altitude of 2,504 meters at the mountain pass. Numerous viewpoints 👁️, hostels 🏨, information centers ℹ️, and places to stop for refreshments 🥨 beckon along the road. One of the most popular destinations is the Franz-Josefs-Höhe, which is located at two of Austria's superlatives 🇦🇹: the highest mountain, the Großglockner 🏔️ (3,798 meters) and the Pasterze Glacier, which is 8 kilometers long ❄️. However, I'll probably have to correct my last sentence every year now, because, like in so many places, the glacier is retreating in record time 🙁. Why and who is to blame isn't part of my tour report ☝️. My tour was also supposed to take me to the FJH, but I had chosen the Glocknerhaus 🏨 a little further down as the starting point for the official Pasterze Glacier Trail. Unfortunately, without a view of the Großglockner and its companions, shrouded in clouds ☁️ 🙁, I first headed downhill ↘️ to the Margaritzen Reservoir, over its dam wall, and almost all the way around the lake itself. Even here, as a small excuse and only slightly obscured, the 3,453-meter-high Johannisberg 🏔️ with its snow-white cap practically loomed as a permanent photo motif 📸 🤩. A short but quite steep climb ↗️ on a beautiful path then led me past the Elisabethfelsen, and once at the top, I also had a view of the Möll and Sandersee. These dead ice lakes actually haven't existed for very long; less than 30 years ago, I would have only had a short further walk into the eternal ice ❄️. I could now see the deformations and traces of the retreat everywhere, and next, a small, adventurous suspension bridge ⛩️ over the outflow into the Margaritzen reservoir awaited me. The rest of the route, with small climbing sections, led me over and through the rock formations 🪨 polished by the ice 🪨 directly to the Sandersee, with a permanently beautiful view 🤩 of the Johannisberg 🏔️. I can even imagine that some hikers mistake it for the Großglockner 🫣. I could have continued for quite a while to the eternal ice ❄️, but opted for the only ascent path ↗️ below the FJH, which, even from below, is barely noticeable, serpentine-like on loose rock, then with a gradient of up to 35% 🥵, will cause many a curse 😂. Theoretically, you could use the inclined elevator halfway up, but is that not available today or in general?? was not in operation. Finally, at the top, I was overwhelmed by the oversized new building and parking garage, so I quickly continued on to the next destination of the day, the Gamsgrubenweg with its 6 tunnels 🔦 and subsequent panoramic trail. The last 20 pictures 📸 were taken directly from various vantage points.

A bit tiring, especially on the way back, but beautiful

Super nice hike at high altitude, but from the Franz-Josef-Höhe it goes down steeply, then just when you want to get behind the rest of the glacier....we hiked further down, there were no places that were "difficult " would have been, although Komoot had stated so. Only the ascent at the very end, from the hut to the gallery, in serpentines up the meadow, wasn't what someone who doesn't have a head for heights would wish for ;-) But it worked! Fantastic hike and part of the Adria Trail

Hiking trail to the eternal ice The glacier trail to the Pasterze is one of the most famous themed hiking trails in the Hohe Tauern National Park. With a length of 7.5 kilometers and an area of 18.5 km², the Pasterze is the largest glacier in the Eastern Alps and is located at the foot of the mighty Großglockner. A truly breathtaking experience that will take you back to the Ice Age. The landscape experience is a little reminiscent of Iceland or Norway.