A construction project in the Gamsgrube, a special protection area in the Carinthian part of the Hohe Tauern National Park, is currently causing a stir. The Großglockner Hochalpenstrassen AG (Grohag), as the builder, supports the project, as does the national park: it serves to guide visitors and offers urgently needed toilet facilities. However, the environmental umbrella organization and the Alpine Club are strictly against any intervention in this highly sensitive area and have announced legal action.
The planned location has a long history: the Hofmannshütte, operated by the Alpine Club, has stood there since the 19th century. The main reason why this is no longer the case is the climate crisis. At the beginning of the 20th century, the hut was still the starting point for the fastest route to the Großglockner – from here you could cross the Pasterze quite comfortably. In the meantime, the glacier has melted back so much that this route could probably only be mastered under the most extreme conditions: “The Hofmannshütte has lost its justification for alpinism,” as the experienced mountain guide Ernst Rieger puts it. The hut, which has meanwhile run down, was closed in 2006 and demolished in 2016, and the property was renatured.
Magnet for low shoe tourists?
A drawback for some: the hut was on the Gamsgrubenweg, a comfortably developed and only slightly uphill hiking trail that leads from the much-visited Franz-Josefs-Höhe into untouched nature. And the word “untouched” is actually meant seriously in the special protection area: Leaving the path is strictly forbidden, and researchers are only allowed to enter the special protection zone with an extra permit. This is precisely an argument that both sides bring to the table in the discussion about the new building. This would have a steering mechanism for the tourists, say some – the new building would attract “shoulder tourists” and represent an inadmissible interference, others.
The Carinthian national park director Peter Rupitsch supports the new building: “We have a lot of people in the special protection area.” The project could be used to inform and educate about the ban on entry and to offer visitors freely accessible toilet facilities. “And our rangers say: Nowhere else can you fulfill the educational mandate of the national park as fantastically as in there – and also bring the effects of climate change closer,” says Rupitsch. He also denies rumors that an “excursion inn” is planned: “The gastronomy will be very modest if so: juice, sausages, coffee will probably be available in a relatively small interior space. It can also be used for guided tours with school classes when the weather isn’t so good.”
Protection “bitterly needed”
Last but not least, the security argument is also decisive. The Gamsgrubenweg is currently closed in sections: the risk of falling rocks is too great. According to Grohag, a gallery would be built together with the new shelter to protect visitors. Scheduled costs for the protective gallery and hut: 3.3 million euros. And protection is sorely needed, Rupitsch knows: “We installed a counting mechanism on the barrier to the dangerous section, and in the summer around 10,000 people simply climbed over the barriers.” The people are there – the discussion of how to deal with the Gamsgrube should have been held in the past, before the road there was rehabilitated and the tunnels were drilled to protect against rockfall. “People want to do something in nature. The need has become even stronger as a result of the pandemic.”
Little understanding you have for these arguments when Umweltdachverband. “The Gamsgrube is one of the finest nature reserves in Austria. Such infrastructure project brings only more turmoil in the region,” said Association President Franz Maier. Toilet facilities would be there at the starting point on the Franz-Josefs-Höhe: “If someone is on the mountain road, he can not expect that every few kilometers a toilet facility or a stall are.” He sees the danger of “mass and shoe tourism” given “the jewel of the national park must not sacrifice the pure commercial one.”
“Reduced refuge” for mountaineers
Grohag board member Johannes Hörl – like the national park representative – refers to the three basic functions of the project: base for visitor guidance and visitor information, sanitary facilities and an emergency shelter as well as a “reduced shelter for mountaineers”. Grohag cannot simply evade the responsibility that has passed to nature on the Gamsgrubenweg with the argument that “they want to give nature back a bit,” and thus “don’t put a green pen to the hat,” Hörl puts it, not without a side swipe the Alpine Club. As a former Hofmannshütten operator, the Alpine Club once tried to find a replacement building, but decided in 2016 that no new project should follow.
Alpine Club President Andreas Ermacora remains: “We believe that no further construction work should take place in the core zone.” The argument of the steering system “I don’t see it. Basically, it’s about offering something touristic to the people there”. And that it makes sense for a national park to make it accessible? “But not everywhere! There are so many ways that it is accessible and preserved.”
Disagreement on property issues
Like the environmental umbrella organization, “all levers will be set in motion” to prevent construction, says Ermacora. The municipality of Heiligenblut has currently approved a dedication, and the ball is now in the hands of the state and the district authorities. But the Alpine Club does not only want to get involved in this process. Ermacora points to a disagreement over land issues in the affected area dating back decades. In the 1930s, 11,000 square meters of land in the Gamsgrube was expropriated from the Alpine Club in order to build the path – a road was actually planned. For some inexplicable reason, over the decades, this turned into an area of 36,000 square meters, which now belongs to Grohag. The courts will now be dealing with how this came about.
Source: Nachrichten
