Book your holiday
Comments | Blogger
Photo gallery by FlickR
Youtube Videos
Facebook
Wurzeralm NatureExperienceWorld - Two Million Years in Two Hours
© TVB Pyhrn-Priel
Wurzeralm – A journey through time
Our earth is 5 billions of years old but still the development of the Alps only started approximately 65 million years ago. This process took about 2 million years to result in the Alps as we know them today. Man came to Europe 1 – 1, 8 million years ago. This era is the focus of our theme trail to give you the opportunity to experience these historic times up close and personal. Man only really enteres the scene in the last few minutes of this hike!
Nature-Observation-Station
Scientsts and discoverers will enjoy the nature-observation-station. Centrally positioned and due to its open structure, it offers unobstructed circular view around the valley and the surrounding mountain world.
Experience Areas
The Wurzeralm NatureExperienceWorld strengthens the family-friendly hiker’s arena. The experience areas are especially geared for kids. From barefoot parcours, smell experiences, little root men and a range of games – test all your senses as well as your knowledge, fun inclusive!
Pasture-Experience
Our special pasture-experience program with a certified pasture guide offers interesting insights into this versatile habitat including various aspects of the alpine dairies in an illustrative manner.
Natural and Cultural Landscape
The progressive exploitation of mankind has changed the lanscape of the Wurzeralm and Warscheneck, originally formed by a glacier. Human cultural influences are mainly visible in the alpine forestry and dairy industries. The side by side existence of nature and culture brings a multitude of habitats for both fauna and flora.
Alpine Forest
The forest vegetation around the Wurzeralm pasture is still very natural. The climatic conditions structure the forest according to altitudes and allow for a great variety. In lower altitudes mixed forest of deciduous and needle trees dominate, whereas the Wurzeram is situated in the altitude of natural spruce forests, slowly replaced by larch forests towards the forest border. After that short bushy mountain pines dominate to the tree line.
High Alps
The extreme location of the high alps exclude more and more species in a fight for survival. The long snow covered period with only short snow free times, strong temperature fluctuations between night and day, the northern and southern side, icey winter conditions and dryness as well as partly strong winds only allow the most adapted species to survive above the tree line.
Moors
The large mire areas at the Teichlboden are special to this area, developed due to the melted glacierwater, the upper and lower Filzenmoos moor is the highest high and low moors of the northern lime alps. The lowmoors next to clearly buldging highmoors are perfect pasture grounds. Moors are the last part of original nature in our cultural landscape and they are strongly endangered due to ground drainage, peat and turf mining and reforestation. While highmoors are a habitat to highly specialised fauna and flora due to its low nutrient conditions, lowmoors offer a bigger variety of species due to a higher nutrient content.
Alpine dairies and industry
Already before the Stone Ages men lived at the Wurzeralm pasture as hunters. During the Bronze Ages shepherds reached the plateau to clear the area for agricultural purposes.
The actual alpine pasture has been kept authentic for the last 700 – 800 years. If we want to keep the alpine landscape with its stunning variety of flowers, then we must not abandon this old type of culture.
The Alps – our joint natural heritage
The last years show drastic and sudden changes: overdevelopment, noise, air, water and soil pollution. The sensitive ecosystem of the Alps is suddenly threatened also due to the latest global climate changes. The predicted temperature rise until the year 2100 by about 3-5° C speeds up the melting process of the glaciers. Increased floods, storms and avalanches in connection with longer heat periods affect life in the alps. The consequences for the Wurzeralm are possible floods of the Treichlboden, a rise of the forest line and a shift in vegetation zones by up to 400m or damages to our trees. Only fast and suitable measures can counteract these massiv changes. The Wurzeralm NatureExperienceWorld aims at raising the awareness about the vulnerability of our Alps, as it will take every single person’s assistance to ensure the future of the Wurzeralm and the Alps in general.
