At 2,163 metres, the Gehrenspitze is the third highest mountain in the Tannheim Group and is situated in the

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

n state of

Tyrol Tyrol ( ; historically the Tyrole; ; ) is a historical region in the Alps of Northern Italy and western Austria. The area was historically the core of the County of Tyrol, part of the Holy Roman Empire, Austrian Empire and Austria-Hungary, f ...

. It should not be confused with the Gehrenspitze in the

Wetterstein Mountains The Wetterstein mountains (), colloquially called Wetterstein, is a mountain group in the Northern Limestone Alps within the Eastern Alps, crossing the Austria–Germany border. It is a comparatively compact range located between Garmi ...

Surrounding area

The

massif A massif () is a principal mountain mass, such as a compact portion of a mountain range, containing one or more summits (e.g. France's Massif Central). In mountaineering literature, ''massif'' is frequently used to denote the main mass of an ...

of the Gehrenspitze forms the northeastern corner of the

Tannheim Valley The Tannheimer Tal ("Tannheim valley") is a high valley, at an elevation of about 1,100 metres, in the Tannheim Mountains, which are part of the Allgäu Alps in the Austrian state of Tyrol (state), Tyrol (Bezirk Reutte, county of Reutte).It is ...

. East of the Gehrenspitze the terrain descends into the

Lech valley The Lechtal is an alpine valley in Austria, the greater part of which belongs to the state of Tyrol and the smaller part to Vorarlberg. The Lech river flows through the valley. Location The valley is bounded geographically by the Lechtal Alps ...

towards

Reutte Reutte (; Swabian: ) is a town in the Austrian state of Tyrol. It is the administrative center of the Reutte district (''Districts of Austria''). Reutte is located on the Lech, and has a population of 6,704 (as of 2018). Neighbouring municipal ...

. West of the mountain is the Kellenspitze (2,238 m), north of the massif, the

Große Schlicke Große or Grosse is a German surname. Notable people with the surname include: *Aristid von Grosse (1905–1985), German nuclear chemist *Ben Grosse, American record producer and mixer *Carl Grosse (1768–1847), German author, translator, philoso ...

and ''Musauer Berg'' (1,510 m), and, to the south is the ''Schneid'' (2,009 m).

Geology

Like the Tannheim Mountains, the Gehrenspitze is part of the

Northern Limestone Alps The Northern Limestone Alps (), also called the Northern Calcareous Alps, are the ranges of the Eastern Alps north of the Central Eastern Alps located in Austria and the adjacent Bavarian lands of southeastern Germany. The distinction from the ...

, which started to form during the course of

Alpine orogeny The Alpine orogeny, sometimes referred to as the Alpide orogeny, is an orogenic phase in the Late Mesozoic and the current Cenozoic which has formed the mountain ranges of the Alpide belt. Cause The Alpine orogeny was caused by the African c ...

in the

Cretaceous The Cretaceous ( ) is a geological period that lasted from about 143.1 to 66 mya (unit), million years ago (Mya). It is the third and final period of the Mesozoic Era (geology), Era, as well as the longest. At around 77.1 million years, it is the ...

period, about 140 million years ago, a process that has still not quite finished today. The summit of the Gehrenspitze is made of

Wetterstein limestone The Wetterstein Formation is a regional geologic formation of the Northern Limestone Alps and Western Carpathians extending from southern Bavaria, Germany in the west, through northern Austria to northern Hungary and western Slovakia in the east ...

. To the south, somewhat below the summit there are Partnach beds, North Alpine

Raibl beds The Raibl Formation is an Upper Triassic geologic formation in the Northern and Southern Limestone mountain ranges of the Eastern Alps, in Central Europe.Main Dolomite Main Dolomite (, , ) is a lithostratigraphic unit in the Alps of Europe. Formation was defined by K.W. Gümbel in 1857. Middle to Late Triassic sedimentary record in the Alpine realm is characterized by presence of various masses of dolomitic r ...

and Kössener beds at the surface. Not visible is

muschelkalk The Muschelkalk (German for "shell-bearing limestone"; ) is a sequence of sedimentary rock, sedimentary rock strata (a lithostratigraphy, lithostratigraphic unit) in the geology of central and western Europe. It has a Middle Triassic (240 to 230 m ...

in the interior of the summit block. In the area of the Gehrenspitze the Inn Valley Nappe pushes against the Wetterstein mass.Mählmann, Rafael Ferreiro; Morlok, Jürgen (1992): ''Das Wettersteingebirge, Widerlager der allochthonen Inntaldecke, und die Ötztalmasse, Motor tertiärer psthumer NW-Bewegungen im Mieminger Gebirge (Nordtirol, Österreich)''. (uibk.ac.at)
(pdf; 3.7 MB)

Ascent

The Gehrenspitze may be climbed up the

normal route A normal route or normal way (; ) is the most frequently used climbing route for ascending and descending a given mountain peak; it is usually the easiest and often the most straightforward route. Other generic names include the ''Tourism, tourist ...

from the south via the saddle of ''Gehrenjoch''. This col may be reached from

Nesselwängle Nesselwängle is a municipality in the district of Reutte in the Austrian state of Tyrol. Geography Nesselwängle lies at the entrance to the Tannheim Valley The Tannheimer Tal ("Tannheim valley") is a high valley, at an elevation of about ...

and the ''Raintal'' valley. From the ''Gehrenjoch'' route ''417b'' runs at UIAA grade I+ over the southern slopes through a gully in the col (clearly visible in the photograph taken from the south) between the summit and the subpeak.

Literature and maps

*Dieter Seibert: ''Allgäuer Alpen Alpin, Alpenvereinsführer''. Munich, Bergverlag Rudolf Rother, 2004. * Kompass Wander-, Bike- und Skitourenkarte: ''Blatt 04 Tannheimer Tal'' (1:35,000). (as at: February 2007)

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gehrenspitze (Allgau Alps) Two-thousanders of Austria Mountains of Tyrol (federal state) Mountains of the Alps Allgäu Alps