Читать книгу Trekking Munich to Venice. The Traumpfad, 'Dream Way', a classic trek across the eastern Alps онлайн

14 страница из 49

Geisler Púez and the Forcella Roa (Stage 16)

Despite looking quite different to one another the mighty Karwendel on the northern side of the core and the Dolomites to the south are closely related. Both are of similar age, formed in similar circumstances, and both are composed of types of limestone. The lagoons where the Dolomites were formed, however, produced a higher proportion of magnesium and that gave these mountains their distinct shape and colour.

The limestone on top of the core of the Alps, running east–west, has long been stripped away and older layers exposed. This is what you see when you cross the Tux and Zillertal Alps, where instead of limestone the mountains consist of much older metamorphic gneiss, slate and granite.

Although the age of the rocks on view is measured in tens of millions of years the process that turned them into mountains is more recent. This is a landscape where for most of the year the predominant colour is white, and which only a few thousand years ago was almost totally covered by an ice cap. Glaciers still cut their way into mountainsides today. Even with global warming the process that formed today’s mountains (only the highest of which would have protruded through the ice cap) is still going on.