Übergossene Alm, the "Covered Mountain Pasture" - One tells oneself...

The only “calcareous Alpine glacier in Salzburg” is found on the Hochkönig plateau in the Northern Calcareous Alps. While the glacier surface was still 5.5 km² in size around 1888, today there is just under 1 km² of glacier surface. The name “Übergossene Alm” (Covered mountain pasture) is based on a legend that goes back to the “Little Ice Age”.

A wide, white glacier field lies on Hochkönig mountain. This glacial field was not always there. A long time ago, instead of cold ice, there was a beautiful alpine pasture here, with lush grass, bright flowers, stately cows and laughing people. But the people became haughty. They bathed in the delicious, rich milk of the cows. They paved the paths to the Alm with round, yellow cheese wheels. They even spread butter on the gaps. But when they chased away an old beggar who was begging for food because he was hungry, that was the final straw. Heavy, black clouds gathered over the Hochkönig. A terrible ice and snow-storm buried the alpine pasture – for all time. Since then, people have called this field of eternal ice the “Übergossene Alm”. It will probably never be known whether the begging wanderer was actually the Lord himself.