Pitztal
| Pitztal | ||
|---|---|---|
 View of the inner Pitztal from the southeast |
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| location | Tyrol , Austria | |
| Waters | Peak | |
| Mountains | Ötztal Alps | |
| Geographical location | 47 ° 6 ' N , 10 ° 49' E | |
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| rock | Gneiss , quartz phyllite | |
| length | 40 km | |
The Pitztal is a 40 km long, southern side valley of the Inn Valley , which branches off at Imst . It is located in the Imst district of the state of Tyrol in Austria . The valley is traversed by the Pitze (also called Pitzbach) and lies entirely in the Ötztal Alps .
geography
Geographical location
The Pitztal flows between Imst and Roppen , opposite the Tschirgant , into the Inntal, which forms a 100 m deep gorge here. The Pitze forms the Arzler Pitzeklamm in its lower course .
The outer Pitztal with the villages of Arzl, Wald, Wenns and Jerzens is more of a low mountain range. At the foot of the Venet near Wenns, the Pillertal branches off to the southwest and offers a connection over the Pillerhöhe to the Kaunertal . This area is also called Wenner Schmalzkessel .
The valley narrows from Jerzens to the south and is counted as part of the Innerpitztal. It runs here between the Kaunergrat , which forms the border to the Kaunertal for around 30 km in the west, and the Geigenkamm in the east to the almost parallel Ötztal . The valley rises evenly up to the foot of the Wildspitze , which is part of the Ötztal Alps. At Mittelberg in the municipality of St. Leonhard, the valley divides into the Mittelberg and Taschach valleys.
Communities
The Pitztal is divided into the following communities:
The four municipalities together form the Pitztal planning association with 7534 inhabitants (as of January 1, 2020) and an area of 312.82 km², 8.7% of which is permanent settlement.
geology
Up until the Ice Age, the front Pitztal was part of the Inn Valley, the Inn continued to flow from Prutz over today's Piller Höhe. Only after the Ice Age did the Inn break through the narrow Pontlatz near Landeck in a new river bed.
The Pitztal cuts through the mountain range of the Ötztal Alps, the so-called Ötztal crystalline, in its extension between the Wipptal , the Vinschgau and the upper Inntal . In this area it consists largely of gneiss rocks that were converted from other rocks during the formation of the Alps.
Morphologically, three main sections can be distinguished in the Pitztal: the lovely valley exit around Arzl-Wenns with the gently rising grassland towards the southwest to the Piller Sattel, from the Talknick towards the southeast a narrow V valley to the Zaunhof district and a typical glacier formation as a U valley -Trough.
At the head of the valley, the Mittelbergferner and the Taschachferner form extensive glacier areas at the Wildspitze.
climate
The Pitztal, together with the Ötztal , the Kaunertal and the Upper Court in the upper Inntal, is a so-called inner-alpine dry valley due to the relative lack of precipitation and is one of the areas with the lowest rainfall in Tyrol. The inner Pitztal lies on the north side of the main Alpine ridge , which represents a barrier against the air masses flowing from the south. To the north, the Pitztal is shielded by the Northern Limestone Alps , which force the air masses coming from the Atlantic to rain down. The Ötztal is much better shielded by the Tschirgant massif than the Pitztal by the area where it flows into the Inntal and Gurgltal .
etymology
The name Pitztal is probably derived from the Latin puteus , which means something like “well” or “pit” (from which the German loan word puddle is derived). Another interpretation is based on the Rhaeto-Romanic term Piz for "pointed mountain peak".
The name was first mentioned in a document as Puzzental in 1265 in the Starkenberg document, the oldest document written in German on Tyrolean soil.
history
Early and ancient times
In 1992 a prehistoric sanctuary was discovered on the Pillerhöhe , which points to a settlement of the front Pitztal in the Bronze Age . The cup stone from Wenns can also be dated to the Bronze Age . The first known tribe were the Breonen that the Rhaetians be expected.
With the conquest of the alpine region by the Romans in 15 BC. The Pitztal came to the province of Raetia . The decisive settlement of the valley occurred from around 600 by the Bavarians and probably to a lesser extent by the Alemanni , who mixed with the local population.
Middle Ages and Early Modern Times
Since the end of the 6th century, the Inntal and Pitztal were under the rule of the Duchy of Bavaria, in the 9th century it came to the Franconian and then to the Roman-German Empire. In 1363 the Pitztal and Tyrol came under the Habsburgs .
Between the 11th and 14th centuries, slash and burn grazing and arable land was created. Important landlords in the Middle Ages included the nobles of Tarasp in the Lower Engadine , the Starkenbergers and the Stams monastery .
Up until the 14th century, the feudal lords Schwaighöfe were founded in higher altitudes between 1200 m and 2000 m, where only cattle farming was possible . The interest was delivered in kind. Later the farms were converted into alpine huts.
Due to the common inheritance sharing in the valley, in which each child received an inheritance from the farm, the farm units were so fragmented that they could no longer support the families with many children. Therefore, in the 17th century, the inhabitants of the valley had to look for income in secondary jobs, and in the 19th century many hired themselves as seasonal workers abroad, including the so-called Swabian children .
The age of the stone setting on the Luibis floors is unclear.
20th century
The alpine tourism that began in the 19th century brought an important sideline as porter, mountain guide and hut keeper of the then newly built mountain huts of the Alpine Club .
In the 1930s, the decline in cattle sales on the markets in Imst and Landeck had a devastating effect, plus the thousand-mark ban issued by the German government in 1933 , which led to a massive decline in tourist guests. After the occupation of Austria in 1938, the economic situation gradually improved, but then the Second World War broke out. During the war, an American bomber ( B-17 Flying Fortress ) crashed over the Taschachferner ; the wreckage has been exposed below the Taschachferner Abbruch not far from the Taschachhaus due to the retreat of the glacier.
After the war, in contrast to the other Tyrolean valleys, tourism in the Pitztal was still a long way from growing prosperity.Only through the initiative of the then popular governor Eduard Wallnöfer and, above all, the construction of the Pitztal Glacier Railway, the economic conditions in the valley could improve improve. This also led to a clearly visible change in the rural cultural landscape, but secures the livelihood of the population and prevents emigration. The townscape of the rear Pitztal has changed completely in the course of the last 20 years, while the less tourist-influenced places (e.g. Zaunhof) have been able to retain their mountain-rural face. In the future, it is important to consider how far the tourist development of a valley can and should go. An example of this is the controversial development of the Mittelbergferner for the ski area and the planned merger with the Sölden ski circus.
Culture
dialect
The Pitztal belongs to the Bavarian dialect area . It was linguistically strongly influenced by the Inn Valley, among others. The Pitztal dialect differs strictly from that of the Ötztal , which often leads to communication difficulties. The hard pronunciation of the consonants k , ch and ck is characteristic of Pitztal . While the prefix has been retained in the Ötztal dialects , the e (as in gmacht , gwesa ) is omitted . If the g meets a k or an h , it is pronounced like a ck , such as B. in kouft (bought), kett (had) or koult (brought) . It is also noticeable that in the Pitztal dialect many vowels are still spoken like double vowels before monophthonging . For example, as in the words guat / guet (good) or Riema / Rieme (belt). I and e are not spoken like a long ie , but separated.
| itt / itte | Not |
| Rua | slope |
| gach | quick, quick |
| Ha | hay |
| muana / muane | say |
| Ärgerti (formerly) | Tuesday |
| Pfinsti (formerly) | Thursday |
folklore
Folk sagas and legends revolve around the "Feinpitz" and the "Grobpitz", two lovable residents who do all sorts of jokes in the Pitztal. The origin of these fabulous figures is unclear.
economy
The valley's economy depends on its geographic location. The outer Pitztal with the communities of Arzl and Wenns still has a balanced ratio of craft, trade and service companies, while tourism predominates in Jerzens and St. Leonhard .
The manufacturing industry and trade tend to have a local supply function. There are a large number of wood processing plants, while there are no industrial areas.
Some of the valley residents work as commuters (day or week commuters) in the Imst area to Innsbruck .
tourism
With the three ski areas of the Pitztal Glacier , the Hochzeiger Bergbahnen and the Rifflsee Bergbahnen , the Pitztal offers a wide range of leisure and sports activities. The Pitztal Glacier is Austria's highest glacier ski area, leads up to 3,440 m and was put into operation in 1983. At the same time, the winter sports infrastructure and the associated structural measures cause serious interventions in the high alpine landscape and the sensitive glacier ecosystem. There have been plans since 2015 to connect the Pitztal Glacier and Sölden ski areas .
The Pitztal has around 8,000 guest beds and around 1.2 million overnight stays a year.
With the construction of the Pitztal bridge and the resulting improved connection to the Inntal and the development of the Mittelberg glacier in the rear Pitztal, the valley could be opened up for tourism.
The hotel and tourism industry is the largest employer in the valley, of which the Pitztaler Gletscherbahnen is the most important single employer. It employs around 95 people all year round in the cable car and restaurant.
The communities of Arzl and Wenns tend to have a two-season focus, while Jerzens and St. Leonhard are dominated by winter tourism.
Agriculture
Agriculture in the Pitztal is structured on a small scale, with part-time businesses by far predominating. Most of the mountain farms are located in zones with higher or highest levels of difficulty.
With the exception of Arzl, the focus of agricultural production is largely on livestock farming and here again on the production of breeding cattle. There has been an increase in sheep farmers recently.
Alpine farming is of great importance. Originally it was only an extension of the limited forage areas for the cattle, but today it maintains the landscape, protects against erosion and, with the management of alpine huts, also offers the sale of high-quality products.
traffic
The Pitztal is connected to the transport network via the Inntal motorway and the Imst-Pitztal train station of the Arlbergbahn . From here the Pitztaler Landesstraße leads over the Pitztal Bridge, opened in 1983, over the Inn to Mittelberg and overcomes a difference in altitude of around 1000 m. Several galleries built since 1982 offer protection from avalanches. In Wenns a road branches off to the Piller Höhe, on to Fließ and Kaunerberg / Kauns .
An overland bus service (Postbus) is offered from Imst-Pitztal train station.
Sports
Since 2013, the Pitztal-Gletscher Trail-Maniak , with a length of around 95 kilometers and around 6500 meters of altitude, the highest mountain marathon in the Alps and one of the most demanding in Europe, has been held in mid-July .
There has also been the glacier marathon since 2006 in July, which starts at the foot of the glacier and goes all the way to Imst.
literature
- Willi Pechtl: Living in the valley. The Pitztal lengthways and across . Studia, Innsbruck 2015, ISBN 978-3-903030-11-4 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Statistics Austria - Population at the beginning of 2002–2020 by municipalities (area status 01/01/2020)
- ^ Clemens Perktold: Glacier fusion Pitztal-Ötztal experiences serious crisis. In: www.mein Bezirk.at. August 16, 2018, accessed July 24, 2019 .