Hochfeiler

Hochfeiler North Face

Hochfeiler (center) from the west, left of the Hochferner top

The Hochfeiler (Italian: Gran Pilastro ) is at an altitude of 3509 m above sea level. A. the highest mountain in the Zillertal Alps, a mountain range in the eastern Alps. Its highest peak is exactly on the main ridge of the mountain range and marks a point in the State border between the Austrian state of Tyrol and the Italian province of South Tyrol. To the east, north and southwest it sends distinctive ridges. The north side is glaciated throughout the area, forming a striking and 60 ° inclined, 300 -meter-high ice wall. Due to the climate change since 1850 melts the ice and Firnauflage, as everywhere in the Alps, continuously. The " Hochfeiler - ice wall " is one of the most famous tours of classical alpinism. Was first climbed the mountain on July 24, 1865 by the Austrian mountaineer and co-founder of the Austrian Alpine Club, Paul Grohmann, and the mountain guides of Georg Samer Breitlahner and Peter Fuchs from Sankt Jakob in Pfitsch.

Environment

The mountain is surrounded by glaciers. In the north and east stretches the Schlegeiskees, the largest glacier in the area, up to the summit, to the south lies the Glider addition and west of the Weißkarferner. Adjacent mountains are in the east, in the course of Ostgrats, the High Weißzint with a height of 3371 meters and in the northwest, the 3463 meter high Hochferner tip. The Hochfeiler north face drops to Schlegeisspeicher, its southwestern flank to the Pfitscher valley. Neighbouring settlements are located about 7 km as the crow stone in Pfitscher valley and in the eastern Ahrntal of 15 km from the tourist resort Luttago in the West.

Geology

The Hochfeiler is, like all the other three thousand in the main ridge of the Zillertal Alps, from the very massive alpine so-called central gneiss, which is covered with a powerful, emerging from basic volcanic rock, slate pad in the upper area, which consists mainly of greenschist. This leads to near the summit of these mountains justified by the weathering of rock fall danger. Between the Hochfeiler hut and the summit a Marmorzug in SW-NE direction is. At minerals in the shale shell for the high Feiler are albite (often in centimeter-sized pieces ), to mention quartz and chlorite, and biotite, amphibole ( hornblende ), calcite and epidote.

Bases and Ascension

The path taken by the first began in Unterbergtal, a branching off to the southeast side branch of the Pfitschtal Valley, above stone. Grohmann and his companions camped on the night of July 24, 1865 in a poor hut (quote Grohmann ). About the Glider and the southwest addition, they reached the summit after 3 ½ hours. Today's normal route, the easiest ascent, leads from the Hochfeiler hut, situated on 2710 meters above sea level, also on the southwest in a walking time of about 3 hours. In a direct ascent from the valley Pfitscher over the southwest of the path can be shortened somewhat, the Hochfeiler hut will not happen. Other long trails leading from the northern Schlegeistal on the Rötenwand, and on the east ridge as a combined climbing rock / ice in difficulty UIAA IV 300 -meter-high ice wall known Hochfeiler - is committed by north from the Schlegeistal ( First ascent: F. Dyck and Hans Hörhager, 1887).

Additional offices are the Furtschaglhaus ( 2295 m) and the Edelraut ( 2545 m).

Sources and maps

• Heinrich Klier, Walter Klier: Alpine Club leaders Zillertal Alps, Rother Verlag, Munich (1996 ), ISBN 3-7633-1269-2
• Alpine Club map 1:25,000, sheet 35/1, West Zillertal Alps
• Casa Editrice Tabacco, Tavagnacco, carta topografica 1:25,000, Sheet 037, Hochfeiler - Pfunderer mountains