Kaunertal Glacier Road

The Kaunertaler Gletscherstrasse runs about twenty-six kilometres from Feichten up the Kaunertal to the Weissseeferner at around two thousand seven hundred and fifty metres, climbing some fifteen hundred metres in twenty-nine hairpins, past the Gepatsch reservoir - a large rockfill dam completed in 1964 whose flank has an ongoing slow landslide monitored continuously. Above the reservoir the road climbs through moraine and rock to the glacier ski area. The Kaunertal is one of the drier inner-alpine valleys and the vegetation reflects that. There is a nature information point at Gepatschhaus, walking onto the Gepatschferner, and the road is a well-known cycling climb. Like the other Tyrolean glacier roads it is tolled and dependent on weather.

What you actually see

• Twenty-nine hairpins in 1,500 metres - the climb from the valley to the ice.
• The Gepatsch reservoir - the 1964 rockfill dam with its monitored moving flank.
• Glacier terrain at the top - moraine, rock and the Weissseeferner ski area.
• A dry inner-alpine valley - the vegetation of a rain-shadowed side valley.

When to go

June to October for driving; the ski season for the glacier. Half a day.

Honest expectations

Tolled and closed in bad weather. It is a dead end - you come back the same way. Altitude affects some visitors at 2,750 metres. The glacier has retreated substantially.

Nearby

Landeck and the Inn valley are north; the Ötztal is east over the ridge.