Climate change | The Zugspitze is crumbling

The Zugspitze is a popular excursion destination. No one was injured in the rock fall. Photo: Unsplash/Alana Harris The Zugspitze has started moving. A rock fall on the Tyrolean side kicked up a cloud of dust on Tuesday that could be seen several kilometers away. The mayor of Grainau, Stephan Märkel, explained that he had never seen such a rock cliff at the foot of the Zugspitze.

Luckily the demolition occurred in an impassable place. The rock came loose on the border ridge between Germany and Austria. There the so-called Bayernsteig runs from the Eibsee up to the Wiener-Neustädter-Hütte. But the path has not been maintained for a long time and has been closed for two years.

Franz Dengg, managing director of the Tiroler Zugspitzbahn, reacted calmly. He estimates that around 20 to 30 cubic meters of rock came loose. This is just a small rock fall. However, limestone can cause large clouds of dust. Dengg doesn't want to talk about any damage. "It's nothing unusual." Even after more stones were broken off, the cable cars near the demolition site resumed operations.

Boulders were still coming loose from the rock face, said Franz Dörfler, deputy head of the Grainau mountain rescue service. "Apparently it's crumbling again now." However, he holds back from speculating about the extent of the demolition. A drone is now supposed to clarify how big the rock fall actually is.

Such rockfalls are not surprising. The Wetterstein limestone that makes up the mountain massif is comparatively brittle. The rock is held together by permafrost inside the mountain. But because temperatures in the Alps are rising particularly quickly as a result of climate change, the ground is increasingly thawing in the summer months. This means that rock falls occur more frequently - but they don't always end as lightly as this time at the Zugspitze.

During the Blatten landslide in the Swiss canton of Valais in May 2025, rock and ice fell from the Birch Glacier into the valley and buried large parts of the town. The impending landslide had been recognized beforehand so that the village could be evacuated in time. The place is now being rebuilt at a higher location.

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