The Seefeld Plateau (german: Seefelder Plateau) is a montane valley and basin landscape in the North Tyrolean Limestone Alps about 500 metres above the Inn valley in the

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

n state of

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

. The plateau covers the valley basin around the villages of

Seefeld in Tirol Seefeld in Tirol is an old farming village, now a major tourist resort, in Innsbruck-Land District in the Austrian state of Tyrol with a local population of 3,312 (as of 1 January 2013). The village is located about northwest of Innsbruck on a pla ...

and

Scharnitz Scharnitz is a municipality in the district of Innsbruck-Land in the Austrian state of Tyrol located north of Innsbruck and from Seefeld in Tirol on the German border. It is one of the largest municipalities and has 10 parts: Au, Eisack, Gieße ...

as well as the valley of ''Leutaschtal''.

Location

The Seefeld Plateau runs northwards from the edge of the Inn

graben In geology, a graben () is a depressed block of the crust of a planet or moon, bordered by parallel normal faults. Etymology ''Graben'' is a loan word from German, meaning 'ditch' or 'trench'. The word was first used in the geologic contex ...

at the Zirler Berg. It lies at a height of around in the North Tyrolean Limestone Alps between the

Wetterstein Mountains The Wetterstein mountains (german: Wettersteingebirge), colloquially called Wetterstein, is a mountain group in the Northern Limestone Alps within the Eastern Alps. It is a comparatively compact range located between Garmisch-Partenkir ...

to the northwest, the

Mieming Mountains The Mieming(er) Range, Mieminger Chain (german: Mieminger Kette) or Mieminger Mountains (''Mieminger Gebirge''), is a mountain range of the Northern Limestone Alps in the Eastern Alps. It is located entirely in Austria within the state of Ty ...

to the west and the

Karwendel The Karwendel is the largest mountain range of the Northern Limestone Alps. The major part belongs to the Austrian federal state of Tyrol, while the adjacent area in the north is part of Bavaria, Germany. Four chains stretch from west to east; in ...

to the east. The

Seefeld Saddle The Seefeld Saddle (german: Seefelder Sattel) is a saddle and mountain pass, , in the Northern Limestone Alps in the Austrian federal state of Tyrol. Two major transport routes run over it: the ''Seefelder Straße'' (B 177) and the Mitt ...

(), a mountain pass and

saddle The saddle is a supportive structure for a rider of an animal, fastened to an animal's back by a girth. The most common type is equestrian. However, specialized saddles have been created for oxen, camels and other animals. It is not kno ...

south of Seefeld, forms a watershed, north of which the plateau drains towards the

Isar The Isar is a river in Tyrol, Austria, and Bavaria, Germany, which is not navigable for watercraft above raft size. Its source is in the Karwendel range of the Alps in Tyrol; it enters Germany near Mittenwald and flows through Bad Tölz, ...

and south of which it drains into the

Inn Inns are generally establishments or buildings where travelers can seek lodging, and usually, food and drink. Inns are typically located in the country or along a highway; before the advent of motorized transportation they also provided accommo ...

Geology and flora

The dominant rocks of the Seefeld Plateaus are Wetterstein limestone and main dolomite with scattered occurrences of

bituminous Asphalt, also known as bitumen (, ), is a sticky, black, highly viscous liquid or semi-solid form of petroleum. It may be found in natural deposits or may be a refined product, and is classed as a pitch. Before the 20th century, the term ...

slate Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade regional metamorphism. It is the finest grained foliated metamorphic ro ...

. A branch of the

ice age An ice age is a long period of reduction in the temperature of Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental and polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers. Earth's climate alternates between ice ages and gre ...

Inn Glacier scoured out several basins and left lakes behind such as the Wildsee, the Möserer See and the

Wildmoossee The Wildmoossee is an aperiodic mountain lake, 3 kilometres west of Seefeld in Tirol near the village of Wildmoos in the market borough of Telfs. The lake lies in the area of the water-soluble main dolomite of the Seefeld Plateau at a ...

as well as numerous

raised bog Raised bogs, also called ombrotrophic bogs, are acidic, wet habitats that are poor in mineral salts and are home to flora and fauna that can cope with such extreme conditions. Raised bogs, unlike fens, are exclusively fed by precipitation (ombrot ...

s like the Reither Moor that were formed by the silting up of lakes. The plateau lies in the montane

altitude zone Altitudinal zonation (or elevational zonation) in mountainous regions describes the natural layering of ecosystems that occurs at distinct elevations due to varying environmental conditions. Temperature, humidity, soil composition, and solar ...

. On its slopes are

fir Firs (''Abies'') are a genus of 48–56 species of evergreen coniferous trees in the family (biology), family Pinaceae. They are found on mountains throughout much of North America, North and Central America, Europe, Asia, and North Africa. The ...

and

beech Beech (''Fagus'') is a genus of deciduous trees in the family Fagaceae, native to temperate Europe, Asia, and North America. Recent classifications recognize 10 to 13 species in two distinct subgenera, ''Engleriana'' and ''Fagus''. The ''Engl ...

mixed woods interspersed with

spruce A spruce is a tree of the genus ''Picea'' (), a genus of about 35 species of coniferous evergreen trees in the family Pinaceae, found in the northern temperate and boreal ( taiga) regions of the Earth. ''Picea'' is the sole genus in the sub ...

. The meadows around the villages are mainly

false oat-grass ''Arrhenatherum elatius'', with the common names bulbous oat grass, false oat-grass, tall oat-grass, tall meadow oat, onion couch and tuber oat-grass, is a species of perennial grass, native to Europe, western Asia, and northern Africa. This ...

pastures that are used as hay meadows or for

grazing In agriculture, grazing is a method of animal husbandry whereby domestic livestock are allowed outdoors to roam around and consume wild vegetations in order to convert the otherwise indigestible (by human gut) cellulose within grass and other ...

Economy and transport

With around 1.74 million overnight stays per year, evenly divided between winter and summer (as at 2013), tourism is by far the most important economic factor on the Seefeld Plateau. The area has developed itself into a centre for

Nordic skiing Nordic skiing encompasses the various types of skiing in which the toe of the ski boot is fixed to the binding in a manner that allows the heel to rise off the ski, unlike alpine skiing, where the boot is attached to the ski from toe to heel. Re ...

and was the venue for Nordic competitions in the

Winter Olympics The Winter Olympic Games (french: link=no, Jeux olympiques d'hiver) is a major international multi-sport event held once every four years for sports practiced on snow and ice. The first Winter Olympic Games, the 1924 Winter Olympics, were h ...

1964 Events January * January 1 – The Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland is dissolved. * January 5 - In the first meeting between leaders of the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches since the fifteenth century, Pope Paul VI and Patriarc ...

and

1976 Events January * January 3 – The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights enters into force. * January 5 – The Pol Pot regime proclaims a new constitution for Democratic Kampuchea. * January 11 – The 1976 Phil ...

, the 1985 Nordic Ski World Championships and many other major events. In summer the

Alps are a major attraction for hikers and mountain bikers. The plateau may be reached on the ''

Seefelder Straße ''Seefelder Straße'' (B 177) is a 21.2 km long former federal road or Bundesstraße#Austria, ''Bundesstraße'' - now classified as a "priority road" or ''Straße mit Vorrang'' - in the Alps in the Austrian federal state of Tyrol (Bund ...

'' (B 177) road that runs over the

from the Inn valley as well as other state roads. The Mittenwald Railway also runs across the plateau from north to south, stopping at several stations including

, Seefeld and Reith.

References

Andrea Bucher, Wolfgang Hofbauer, Georg Gärtner
''Beitrag zur Moosflora von Seefeld und Umgebung und des Leutascher Beckens (Nordtirol)''
In: Berichte des naturwissenschaftlich-medizinischen Vereins in Innsbruck, Vol. 80 (1993), pp. 53–67 (pdf; 2.6 MB) State of Tyrol: Regional profile Seefeld Plateau – 2014 statistics
(pdf; 734 kB)

External links

{{Commons category, Seefelder Plateau, Seefeld Plateau
Planungsverband 14 – Seefelder Plateau
Land Tirol, auf tirol.gv.at
Seefelder Plateau
Tirol Atlas der Universität Innsbruck, auf tirolatlas.uibk.ac.at Regions of Tyrol (state) Innsbruck-Land District Karwendel Wetterstein Mieming Range