Totes Gebirge

The Totes Gebirge ("Dead Mountains"), the second of the main massifs in the Salzkammergut, has the largest high plateau of any range in the Calcareous Alps. Bounded on the west and south by the Traun valley and separated from the Dachstein group by the Traun and the wide Mitterndorf watershed, this vast stony waste, furrowed and swallow-holed, stretches out far to the east, where its finest peaks, the magnificently rugged Grosser Priel (2,514m/8,248ft) and the Spitzmauer (2,446m/8,025ft) slope down to the Stodertal in sheer rock walls. Like all the mountains in the Northern Alps, the Totes Gebirge dates from the Triassic period. The basis is formed by the Werfen schists, above these the brittle lower dolomite and above this again a massive covering of much fissured Dachstein limestone. The whole of the eastern plateau consists of Dachstein limestone, and the great rocky peaks which rise above it are merely the remains of a much deeper covering. In beauty and grandeur the Totes Gebirge must rank as one of the most imposing ranges in the whole of the Alps.