Pallavicini Triumph and Tragedy
To ease the stage of 2,500 altitude metres from Heiligenblut to the peak of the Grossglockner, in 1876 the Alpine Association erected the “Glocknerhaus” at a select location at 1,700 altitude metres to ease the ascent, and soon 3,000 visitors were counted annually. Shortly after the consecration of this base, a man spent the night there who with a challenge offered by fate was to excite special attention: the 28-year-old Margrave Alfred Pallavicini, said to be “Vienna’s strongest man”. With three mountain guides he dared to undertake the ascent on the Grossglockner from the Pasterze through the 600m-high and 52°-steep ice gulley, which has since borne his name. With bravery in place of sufficient safety – ice picks were first invented in only 1924 – a guide undertook the cutting of steps in the ice. The ice cutter was to have been relieved after a while.But this was unsuccessful due to the steep ice and the man continued cutting – 2,500 steps in seven hours, almost to the point of exhaustion, but still to a peak victory. This performance can be judged by the fact that it was twenty-three years later that someone dared to enter this ice gully. In 1886 Pallavicini took on the forbidding Glockner face with three companions. Just below the peak, a snow drift broke off and tore this roped team from the face.
Only Pallavicini survived the fall. He wandered through a confusion of crevices down into the valley. He was found a week later cowered at the edge of a glacier crevice, dead, an out missing and his nose completely shattered. Pallavicini was put to rest at the church wall in the graveyard of Heiligenblut, opposite the metal book, which bears the names of the victims of the Grossglockner for posterity on its pages.