Читать книгу The Karnischer Hohenweg. A 1-2 week trek on the Carnic Peace Trail: Austria and Italy онлайн

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Looking from the Luggauer Sattel to the intimidating cliffs of Torkarspitze (Stage 3)

Plants and wildlife

For most of its journey, the Karnischer Höhenweg stays high and travels through a landscape that for much of the year is covered in snow. Natural vegetation needs an ability to cope with low temperatures and make the best of a short growing season.

The edelweiss (symbol of both the German and Austrian Alpine Clubs), with its creamy felt-like petals in a star formation, may be the most famous flower, but it is only one of over 1500 species that can survive such alpine conditions. Easier to spot than edelweiss are blue trumpet gentians or harebells. Perhaps a little gaudy and much larger is the orange lily. You may also see, growing heroically on inhospitable limestone scree, the golden yellow Rhaetian poppy, the larger flowered ox-eye, or the globeflower. Common in damp valleys, and familiar to English walkers from the Pennines, are the tufty flowers of cotton grass. Attractive even to those with the most casual interest in flowers are orchids, the most spectacular of which is probably the lady’s slipper orchid with its maroon and yellow petals. Also featured are the alpenrose, of which there are at least two common varieties: the red-flowered auburn alpenrose, and the hairy alpenrose, which has pinker flowers. The mauve-flowered Wulfenia, a member of the plantain family, is unique to the Nassfeld area. In the wooded areas, conifers such as fir, larch and pine dominate, but particularly at the eastern end there are large forests of beech.