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Austria's alpine refuges and trails collapse as climate warms November 4, 2024

Writer's picture: Ana Cunha-BuschAna Cunha-Busch

Updated: Nov 4, 2024


Steel anchors have been driven into the mountain to prevent the summit from collapsing (KERSTIN JOENSSON/AFP/AFP)
Steel anchors have been driven into the mountain to prevent the summit from collapsing (KERSTIN JOENSSON/AFP/AFP)

By AFP - Agence France Presse


Austria's alpine refuges and trails collapse as climate warms

Kiyoko METZLER


The historic Zittel hut, perched atop a snow-covered mountain high in the Austrian Alps, has weathered many storms.


But increasingly extreme climate change is taking a terrible toll on the century-old wooden shelter.


“When your hand fits into a crack in the foundation, you have to act,” said Georg Unterberger, responsible for the Austrian Alpine Club's mountain refuges and trails.


The trails up to the refuge on the 3,106-meter (10,190-foot) Sonnblick mountain also suffer.


Experts say that the higher temperatures in the Alps are accelerating the melting of the glaciers and thawing the permafrost. This year-round ice binds giant slabs of rock together.


This has increased the danger of sudden rockfalls and landslides, damaging the trails and putting more pressure on the often aged and neglected huts.


Currently, Austria's alpine clubs are closing up to four huts a year as they become unsafe or too expensive to maintain.


With the country heavily dependent on Alpine tourism, the cost of maintaining the trails has “doubled in the last five years,” said Unterberger, who also works as a building inspector.


Each year, around one million people visit the more than 200 mountain huts that the Austrian Alpine Club - the largest in the country - runs.


- 'Fighting on all fours' -

The trail leading to the Zittel, in the Salzburg region, has always been classified as “black,” but “now it's even more dangerous,” Unterberger told AFP.


Hikers may now need climbing equipment to get there, as the retreat of the glacier, which once ran to the popular refuge, has exposed steep rock faces and vast gravel fields.


“I've seen hikers struggling on all fours to get there,” said Unterberger, adding that work on the trails has increased dramatically in recent years, with ropes and steel steps having to be put in place.


In the Zittel hut, the crumbling foundations and weathered wooden shingles need urgent renovation and thermal insulation.


Thawing permafrost has threatened the very existence of the hut and the adjacent observatory - one of the oldest high-altitude weather stations in the world - for some years now, with the peak in danger of collapsing.


To prevent disintegration, workers have driven 20-meter steel anchors into the top of the mountain and further supported the summit with concrete supports.


For the time being, the peak is stable, but further measures cannot be ruled out.


More money is needed to remedy the decaying infrastructure in the Austrian Alps, with experts saying that 272 of the 429 mountain refuges, as well as 50,000 kilometers (31,000 miles) of trails, are in urgent need of repair.


In a petition earlier this year, the cash-strapped Alpine clubs asked the government to provide an emergency fund of 95 million euros ($103 million).


So far, the government has only pledged three million euros.


Unlike in neighboring Switzerland, where the cantons are responsible for maintaining the trail network, Austrian alpine clubs are largely dependent on increasingly scarce volunteers.


“Many of our 25,000 volunteers are over 65, and recruiting young people has been a challenge,” said Unterberger, noting a trend towards ‘micro-volunteering’ for a few hours or a day, but no more than that.


- Critical situation

The Zittel Refuge shares the summit with the Sonnblick Observatory, which has been measuring and documenting climate change since it opened in 1886.


At the top of the mountain, the temperature has been recorded for 138 consecutive years, the longest uninterrupted record of altitude data in the world.


This data helps scientists around the world refine their climate models, as well as offering a glimpse into the future.


Since the 1950s, all the high mountain regions, such as “the Alps, the Rockies, the Andes, and the Himalayas, have recorded an average annual temperature increase of more than two degrees Celsius,” which is double the global average, Elke Ludewig, the observatory's director, told AFP.


“As nice as it is to still see snow and glaciers, we have a critical situation here in terms of the rate of increase in temperatures,” she said.


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