Hohe Tauern

The massive mountain range of the Hohe Tauern extends from west to east along the southern side of the Pinzgau and its eastward continuation the Pongau - that is, to the southern end of the long valley of the Salzach - forming the boundary between the province of Salzburg and its neighbors to the south, Eastern Tirol and Carinthia. Here the Central Alps are seen in all their magnificence before they gradually fall away to the east. Great expanses of névé (permanent snow), much fissured hanging glaciers, precipitous pinnacles of rock girdled by ice, dazzlingly white slopes and cornices of snow: all this contributes to the magnificent scenery offered by the long main ridge of the Hohe Tauern, extending from the Birluckn (sometimes wrongly called the Birnlücke) in the west to the Murtörl. The short and deeply slashed valleys on the northern side of the range, descending in a succession of steep steps, flow as regularly as the teeth of a comb into the Salzach valley, which runs parallel to the mountains from west to east. The streams flowing down from the glaciers, known as Achen, tumble down the valleys in great waterfalls (Krimmler Fälle, Kesselfall, Gasteiner Fall) or carve out deep gorges (Siegmund-Thun-Klamm, Kitzlochklamm, Liechtensteinklamm). On the southern side, however, a series of subsidiary ridges, some of them with peaks of considerable height, slope down from the main massif towards the Drau valley. Here the side valleys - the Iseltal in Eastern Tirol and the Mölltal in Carinthia - extend far into the main range between these outliers. Wider, friendlier and relatively densely populated, thus better equipped to cater for visitors, these southern valleys form a striking contrast with the austere grandeur of most of the valleys on the Salzburg side of the range.