At 2,428 metres, Fuscher Törl is the high balcony of the Grossglockner High Alpine Road, a saddle on the northern side where the road loops around a ridge and the whole of the Fusch valley drops away below. A stone monument stands here in memory of the men who built the road, designed by the architect Clemens Holzmeister, and from the terrace you look across a sea of peaks to the summit of the Grossglockner itself, at 3,798 metres the highest mountain in Austria.
The road was built between 1930 and 1935 under the engineer Franz Wallack, partly to give work to thousands of unemployed men during the Depression, and it was designed from the start as a scenic route for tourists. It climbs from Fusch in the north and Heiligenblut in the south through more than thirty hairpins, crossing the main ridge of the Alps in a tunnel at Hochtor. A side road from Fuscher Törl, cobbled and steep, climbs to the Edelweissspitze, the highest point you can reach on the road, with a view over dozens of three-thousand-metre peaks.
On the southern side, a branch road leads to the Kaiser-Franz-Josefs-Höhe, where the Pasterze, the largest glacier in Austria, lies at the foot of the Grossglockner. It has shrunk dramatically in recent decades, and signs along the path show where the ice reached in past years. Marmots whistle from the rocks, and ibex graze on the slopes.
The road is a toll road, open roughly from early May to late October or early November, depending on snow, and closed at night. Weather can change quickly, with snow possible even in summer, and the temperature at the top can be twenty degrees lower than in the valley.
Fill up in the valleys before you climb; Zell am See, Bruck and Heiligenblut are the nearest options. There are restaurants at several points along the road, including Fuscher Törl.