Description of the attraction
The Schladming Glacier is located in the Dachstein mountain range, which serves as a kind of border between the federal states of Upper Austria and Styria. The glacier is located 60 kilometers from Salzburg, and its maximum height reaches 2,700 meters above sea level.
At the foot of the glacier, at an altitude of 2040 meters above sea level, another long gorge was discovered, at the bottom of which traces of settlements of ancient people dating back to the Bronze Age, that is, approximately 30-10 centuries BC, were found.
Also on the slopes of the mountains, on the tops of which the Schladming Glacier is located, there are many alpine meadows and pastures, but most of them are now abandoned and not used for their intended purpose. It is believed that they were abandoned by the peasants due to the exorbitant taxes prevailing in what is now Styria. However, there is a legend that earlier the cows grazing in these meadows gave so much milk that the locals became proud and began to build houses from butter and cheese, and their wives bathed in cream to maintain youth and beauty. As a punishment, a terrible snowfall fell on this area, which lasted for several days and buried all the pastures under it. It is worth saying that this legend is not devoid of truth, since from the middle of the 16th century the peak of the Little Ice Age began, which manifested itself in a sharp decrease in the average annual temperature.
The ice cover covers an area of approximately 1 square kilometer, making Schladming the third largest glacier in the Dachstein mountains. And the maximum ice thickness here can reach 30 meters. However, it should be noted that the glacier is now going through hard times due to global warming - the melting of its ice cover begins at a level of 2555 meters. However, in 1980, a ski area was built here, which also functions in summer, and a cable car was built from the glacier gorge to its top.
