Qualla: Grossglockner High Alpine Road

Grossglockner High Alpine Road: Introduction

Mon, 23 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Holger.Ellgaard, CC BY-SA 3.0. In 1924, when a group of Austrian experts proposed building a road over the Hochtor pass, they were laughed at. Austria, Germany, and Italy had a combined total of 154,000 private automobiles. The country had shrunk to a seventh of its imperial size after the First World War, lost its international markets, and was bleeding from devastating inflation. Even a 3-meter gravel track with occasional overtaking points seemed extravagant. Then came the Wall Street crash of 1929. Unemployment hit 26 percent, and the government -- desperate to put people to work -- revived the Grossglockner project. On August 30, 1930, at 9:30 in the morning, the first explosives detonated at Ferleiten. The road that nobody wanted had become the road that 3,200 jobless workers would build.

Image: Holger.Ellgaard | CC BY-SA 3.0

Grossglockner High Alpine Road: Carving a Road Through the Alps

Mon, 23 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Sander Hoogendoorn from Gouda, Holland, CC BY 2.0. The Grossglockner High Alpine Road connects Bruck in the Salzach Valley of Salzburg province with Heiligenblut in Carinthia, crossing the Alpine divide through a tunnel at Hochtor Pass at 2,504 meters. Numbered hairpin curves wind upward from the northern toll booth at Ferleiten,...

Image: Sander Hoogendoorn from Gouda, Holland | CC BY 2.0

Grossglockner High Alpine Road: The Skeptics Were Wrong

Mon, 23 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Hedwig Storch, CC BY-SA 3.0. The Grossglockner High Alpine Road opened on August 3, 1935, inaugurated the following day with an international automobile and motorcycle race. The total cost, including access roads, came in at 910 million Austrian Schillings at 1990 rates -- seven million less than estimated. ...

Image: Hedwig Storch | CC BY-SA 3.0

Grossglockner High Alpine Road: Six Hundred Thousand Tons of Snow

Mon, 23 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ing. Günter Tuder, A-3213 Frankenfels, CC BY-SA 4.0. The road is normally open from May to October, and the annual reopening is an engineering feat in itself. In the 1930s, 350 workers shoveled 250,000 cubic meters of snow over 70 days to clear a single lane. Since 1953, five Wallack rotary plows and twelve workers from GROHAG, the...

Image: Ing. Günter Tuder, A-3213 Frankenfels | CC BY-SA 4.0

Grossglockner High Alpine Road: The Emperor's View

Mon, 23 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Friedrich Fröbel, CC BY-SA 3.0. A spur road branches south from the main route to the Kaiser-Franz-Josefs-Hohe visitors' center at 2,369 meters, named for the visit of Emperor Franz Joseph I and Empress Elisabeth in 1856. The overlook offers a panoramic view of the Pasterze Glacier, the Grossglockner massif -- ...

Image: Friedrich Fröbel | CC BY-SA 3.0