“It’s a tough job” – This is Austria’s highest construction site

The Erzherzog-Johann-Hütte is a special place: Located on the Adlersruhe cliffs below the Großglockner summit, it is a permanent base for more than 5,000 mountaineers who want to climb Austria’s highest mountain every year. But anyone who currently wants to enjoy the tranquility of the high mountains will be disappointed here. Because with a fist-sized compressed air drill, holes are made in the Glocknerfels under deafening noise.

These are necessary so that the specialists of the Salzburg company Steger Bautauf, the experts for high mountain construction sites, can place the anchors for the new mountain station of the material cable car seven meters deep in the Glocknerfels.

Stations damaged by massive avalanche
The reason for the construction: In the winter of 2020, a huge avalanche almost completely destroyed the funicular. The wiped out supports have now been replaced. “However, during the checks, it was also found that the mountain and valley stations were also damaged,” said Toni Riepler, the innkeeper, of “Bergkrone” when visiting the construction site.

Everything is different on a construction site in the high mountains
The compressors that power the drill groan heavily. “The air here is much thinner, so they can’t produce their full output,” explains Michael Junger, one of the mountain-experienced workers who also helped build the material cableway’s highest lift support on the exposed Mittlerer Blaukopf on a height of 3,061 meters: “When everyone has set rock anchors, the base for the new mountain station will be concreted here.”

Of course nothing works in the high mountains without the use of helicopters and you can only fly when the weather is nice. When the Glockner is shrouded in clouds, the construction site is complete.

Going to the site takes hours
But: Not quite, because Junger and his colleagues are here from Monday to Friday: “If it is not possible to fly on Monday morning, then we have to walk up to the construction site.” That means a four to five hour walk with a 1500 meter difference in altitude from the Lucknerhaus to the Adlersruhe.

“It’s a tough job”
“It’s a tough job, but the mountain scenery and the great people here make up for it,” Mittersiller Fritz Kiesel reveals as he cuts several strips of wood.

It is understandable that such a building plot is not cheap. As the owner of the Erzherzog-Johann-Hütte, the Austrian Alpine Club (ÖAK) had to pay 650,000 euros to replace the six supports of the 4.2 kilometer long material cable car. The construction of the top station and the renovation of the bottom station cost another 330,000 euros.

With cable car to work
“What makes us particularly happy is that the cable car is being made suitable for factory traffic,” says Hüttenwirt Riepler. This means that in the future staff may also be transported by train.

This is especially important in times when it is extremely difficult to find staff. Riepler: “In the past, the staff often stayed in the cabin for three months in a row, but nowadays it is common for the employees to work part-time or only a few days a week.”

More safety for mountaineers
The new cable car also increases safety on Austria’s highest mountain. “Of course we can also use the cable car for rescue operations,” says Riepler, who is not only a hut keeper, but also a mountain guide and member of the mountain rescue team of Kals am Großglockner.

Countless missions in the mountains
Riepler and other mountain guides and rescuers come three to four times a week to help mountaineers in emergencies. Just this week, an alpinist had to be removed from the helicopter after suffering from acute altitude sickness, the cabin owner said: “The man’s condition deteriorated rapidly and we had to give him oxygen. Time and again we have to provide first aid to mountaineers in the hut who come to the hut to seek help for minor bleeding, bruising, or circulatory problems.”