ROUTE 98

Kals (Lucknerhaus: 1918m) – Glorer Hut (2642m) – Lucknerhaus

Start	Kals (Lucknerhaus: 1918m)
Distance	10km
Height gain	724m
Height loss	724m
Grade	3
Time	3½–4hrs
Location	Northeast of the Lucknerhaus

This walk has something of everything. For a start it has impressive views of the Grossglockner. It visits two huts, tackles long sections of klettersteig (via ferrata), crosses grassy hillsides, and in early summer is brightened by countless alpine flowers. Since the klettersteig is quite challenging, with considerable exposure, it is a route that cannot be recommended to anyone with a tendency towards vertigo.

The walk begins by following directions for Route 97 as far as the path junction 15mins beyond the Luckner Hut. While the Stüdl Hut path continues ahead, we fork right (sign for the Glorer and Salm Huts). Rising up and across the hillside away from the Grossglockner, the path then cuts back and climbs in a long north-bound slant to another junction on a high point (1½hrs), from which the Grossglockner can be studied rising as an elegant pyramid just ahead.

Bear right and contour southeastward for a while, until you reach a rocky area with a fixed cable safeguarding an easy scramble, at the top of which the Grossglockner once more hoves into view. The trail now crosses a hillside starred with flowers, and comes to yet another path junction. Take the right fork. This leads to another rocky section aided by more fixed cable. Turn a spur, descend briefly, then contour across to a slope of shale and slate below the Pfortscharte. Another path breaks away here to climb to the scharte en route to the Salm Hut, while we cut straight across the slope and begin a lengthy section of klettersteig (caution).

Using plenty of fixed cable as support, the way negotiates a rocky region of narrow ledges, shelves, little gullies, scrambling pitches, and even a wooden ladder to climb. In many places there’s considerable exposure, but invariably in such places you will find adequate cable support.

At the end of the klettersteig there follows an undemanding traverse of a grass slope, before you stomp your way up a short but steep slope of shale to gain a minor spur. Up this spur you soon come onto the Medlscharte (2676m, 2½hrs), from which you should be able to see the Glorer Hut on the Berger Törl saddle to the east. It will only take 15mins to reach it by the continuing path which contours round the head of a grassy basin.

The Glorer Hut (2651m, 2¾hrs, accommodation and refreshments) stands on the windy Berger Törl at the foot of the 2821m Kasteneck; a path strikes south from the hut to the summit of this minor peak in 1hr. Another path goes in the opposite direction to the Salm Hut in 1½hrs; yet another descends through the Leitertal to Heiligenblut in 3½–4hrs.

There are two ways to return to the Lucknerhaus roadhead from the Glorer Hut. The first takes path no 713 (the Wiener Höhenweg) cutting southsouthwest then east to the 2484m Peischlach Törl, and descends steeply from there down the valley of the Peischlachbach to the Lucknerhaus, while a more direct route is that which is described below.

Path no 714 descends southwestward below the hut, cutting down an extensive grass hillside, then in switchbacks to a track where the gradient eases. Curling its way round the hillside, the track goes through several gates and pleasant light woodland. After turning a corner, the Grossglockner can once more be seen in the north. When you go through another gate just above a dark timber farmhouse, leave the track for a narrow footpath on the right. This goes down among trees and leads directly to the car park opposite the Lucknerhaus.

Above the Luckner Hut, the trail is used by walkers approaching both the Stüdl and Glorer Huts

OTHER ROUTES FROM KALS

• From the parking area at Taurer, upvalley from Kals, a walk of 1½–2hrs goes through the gorge of the Dabaklamm, and continues through meadows along the east bank of the Seebach to the Kalser Tauernhaus at 1754m, and from there, a further hour’s walk leads to the Dorfersee tarn at 1935m. Either overnight at the Tauernhaus, or return downvalley to Taurer, for which you should allow at least 2hrs.
• A 4½hr link with the Sudetendeutsche Hut in the Granatspitz can be made from the Kalser Tauernhaus by a trail which climbs the east flank of the Grosser Muntanitz to the 2684m Plojwand, and crossing the dividing ridge north of Gradötz at 2848m. With 1100m to climb from the Tauernhaus, it’s a strenuous but rewarding route.
• A much more gentle 1½hr walk can be had by first taking the cableway from Grossdorf to the Europa Panoramaweg, then following this easy trail southwestward to the Kals-Matreier Törlhaus and continuing to the Goldried Bergbahn where you then ride down to Matrei.

THE GROSSGLOCKNER

At 3798m the Grossglockner is not only Austria’s highest mountain, but it ranks among the most elegant peaks in the Eastern Alps. Seen from the south it appears as a rock pyramid daubed with ice and snow high above the Ködnitztal, but from the east, or almost anywhere above the Pasterze glacier, it soars to a graceful, tapering pinnacle to delight any mountain lover. As John Ball, the Victorian mountaineer and first president of the Alpine Club, wrote in the original English-language climbing guide to the Central Tyrol in 1873: ‘The exquisitely sharp cone … rising in an unbroken slope of 5000ft above the Pasterze glacier, is not surpassed for grace and elegance by any in the Alps … No true mountaineer can behold that beautiful peak without longing to attain its summit.’

Count Franz von Salm-Reifferscheid, Prince-Bishop of Gurk and a future Cardinal, was both rich and powerful, and shared that longing. On his behalf, two Heiligenblut carpenter brothers, J and M Klotz, set out in June 1799 to reconnoitre a route, but were forced by storm to make their retreat from below the Kleinglockner. A week later they tried again by way of the Leiterkees glacier and the Adlersruhe, and managed to secure the route on the steep upper slopes with 140m of rope, before again being forced down by bad weather.

After this, von Salm gave instructions for a shelter to be built below the Leiterkees (the forerunner of the hut which now bears his name) to aid future attempts. The next of these was made on 18 August by a party of no less than 30 – all of whom were turned back by a snowstorm. Six days later, the Klotz brothers, with two other local carpenters, tried yet again, and once more were beaten by the weather. However, the next day all four returned, along with von Salm’s curate-in-chief, Sigmund von Hohenwart, and this time they actually gained the secondary summit of the Kleinglockner, which is just 15m lower than the main peak.

With the winning of the Grossglockner now virtually guaranteed, von Salm was willing to finance another major expedition the following year, for which a second hut was erected higher up the mountain, just below the Hohenwartkopf, and the original Leitertal cabin enlarged to house the 62 people who gathered there on 27 July 1800.

Next morning von Salm accompanied the 11 chosen climbers and their 19 guides to the upper hut, and waited there while the Klotz brothers and two other carpenter-guides, plus two local priests, a botanist and von Hohenwart, continued to the Kleinglockner. With the aid of a tree trunk, Father Horasch and the four guides then crossed the exposed gap now known as the Obere Glocknerscharte, and stood upon the true summit for the first time, their achievement effectively marking the birth of alpinism in the Eastern Alps.

Today the Grossglockner boasts some 30 routes and variations of routes to the summit, the variety of which exceeds that of any other mountain in Austria. Of these, the most popular by far are the Ordinary Route via the Adlersruhe and Kleinglockner; and the Stüdlgrat, a rock route on the Southwest Ridge approached from the Stüdl Hut. In recent years glacier retreat has led to an increase in stonefall, a danger exacerbated by the large number of climbers forming bottlenecks on exposed places. But experienced walkers eager to make the ascent are advised to contact the mountain guides in either Kals am Grossglockner (tel 04876 263), or Heiligenblut (tel 04824 2700).