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Monument to Snow

Esther Strauß | RLB Art Prize

Start: Tulfes, Talstation Glungezerbahn
8.5.2026 - 8.11.2026
Curator

On a mountain peak in Tyrol, artist Esther Strauß has created a monument consisting of three words. An audio guide presents research findings on climate change and tells the story of snow and its transience. A poetic response to the climate crisis. Embark on a hike to Esther Strauß’s Monument to Snow. Along the way, you’ll be accompanied by six in-depth audio recordings.

Blick in die Intervention: Es lebe der Sport!?

Insights into the intervention

Audio tour / Audio guide

Audio tour GERMAN
Audio tour ENGLISH

Title

Directions, information
Travelling by public transport
The Glungezerbahn is easily accessible by public transport. Take the train or bus to Innsbruck or Hall in Tirol, then continue on VVT line 540 to the ‘Tulfes Glungezerbahn Talstation’ stop. The stop is located right next to the valley station.
Travelling by car
Take the A12/A13 to the Hall-Mitte exit, then follow the main road to Tulfes and the Glungezerbahn valley station. Car parks are available at the valley station.
Traveling in an eco-friendly way
Travelling from Innsbruck to Tulfes by train and/or bus instead of by car saves around 2.10 kg of CO₂ emissions.

Glungezerbahn opening hours
Mon–Sun: 08:30–17:00
Please note the last descent!

For current opening times and evening runs, please check the Glungezerbahn website: www.glungezerbahn.at

Directions
Start: Tulfes, Glungezerbahn valley station
Destination:Monument to Snow
Walking times:
Tulfein mountain station – Tulfein Jöchl: approx. 50 mins
Tulfein Jöchl – Glungezer summit: approx. 1 hr
Glungezer summit – Gamslahnerspitze: approx. 40 mins
The times given are walking times only, excluding stops at the audio stations, in accordance with the criteria for trail classificationunder the Tyrolean Mountain Trails Concept.
The ascent is a comfortable ride on the 10-person gondola lift of the Glungezerbahnfrom Tulfes(948 m) to the Halsmarter midway station(1,560 m). From there, continue on the Tulfein Express gondola lift to the Tulfein mountain station(2,056 m). This is the starting point of the tour, where you’ll find the first audio station.
At the large panoramic display, follow the signs for “Glungezer-Hütte”to the left onto the wide path running above – not towards the Tulfeinalm. This leads first through a short forest glade and then uphill on a path to the left past the Zirbensee. A short while later, the path joins the Kurt-Recheis-Weg, a wide gravel track. After a few metres, you reach the second audio station.
The route continues uphill on the gravel road at a gentle gradient. You pass the Schaferhütte(private, unstaffed) and, just before the building housing the Glungezer-Hütte’s material cableway, reach the “Schartenkogel / Glungezer-Hütte” forkat the Tulfein Jöchl ( 2,278 m). There, you leave the gravel road and follow the signs for “Glungezer-Hütte”to the right onto the Panoramasteig (AV 333). After a few minutes along the Tulfein-Jöchl, you reach the third audio station, pass the “Gwannschafalm / Naviser Jöchl” fork and finally begin the ascent via the well-marked Panoramasteig.
Accompanied by impressive views, this trail now leads uphill over increasingly rocky terrain on the north-eastern ridge of the Glungezer. After a short flat section, you finally reach the 4th audio station. The trail then climbs steadily to the “Glungezergipfel / Glungezer-Hütte” fork, which is located below the summit cross. Here, you turn left, reach the 5th audio stationand ascend in a series of switchbacks towards the south to the Glungezer summit(2,677 m), where the 6th audio stationis located. The summit cross is not located directly at the highest point, but about 120 metres before it.
From the Glungezer summit(2,677 m), the route continues south-eastwards along the ridge. Here, follow the Glungezer Geier Weg(AV 335), which is classified as a black, difficult mountain trail and requires appropriate alpine experience. The ridge course leads up and down over sections of pathless rocky slabs and boulders, where a high degree of attention is required, to the monument to snowat the Gamslahnerspitze ( 2,681 m).

Return route:The return journey follows the same route as the ascent. Please ensure you note the last descent of the Glungezerbahn!

Important contacts:
Glungezerbahn: Tel.: +43 5223 78321
Mountain emergency number: 140
Notes:
Mobile phone: Network coverage is not guaranteed throughout the area! Please bring your mobile phone with a fully charged battery and save the Alpine emergency number 140.
Equipment: Rain and wind jacket, sun protection, food and drink, emergency kit, etc.
There are no water sources along the route and no facilities to refill water.
Choosing the right footwear is crucial for a successful and safe mountain hike. Mountain boots (min. Cat. B), designed for challenging terrain, provide the necessary grip and protection. Sports shoes are not suitable for this type of activity!
In rocky terrain, pay particular attention to slippery spots and think ahead.
Stay on the marked paths to protect the alpine vegetation.
Assess your abilities realistically, respect your limits and turn back in good time if you become tired or in bad weather. This applies in particular to the section between the Glungezer summit and the Gamslahnerspitze.
Please ensure you note the last descent of the Glungezerbahn.

MONUMENT TO SNOW
ESTHER STRAUSS

Monuments usually come too late. In the Tux Alps, a monument now commemorates a loss even before it has occurred. On an unnamed peak on the ridge between Glungezer and Gamslahner, at an altitude of almost 2,700 metres, a delicate, 80 cm long brass inscription has been mounted. The three words ‘Monument to Snow’ transform the mountain into a pedestal. At its highest point, one day – a day that can be sensed but not predicted – the last snow to fall on this peak may melt. What does its disappearance mean to us?

Scientists have been documenting the climate crisis in the Alps for decades through glacier melt. Between 1969 and 2015, 40 per cent of all glaciers in Austria were lost; [1]in a few decades, they will have disappeared completely. [2] But the snow is also becoming scarcer. When the Glungezer Hut was built in 1932/33 as the base hut for the first FIS World Ski Championships, its downhill run – which later became legendary – stretched 16 kilometres down to Karlskirche in the Inn Valley. [3] Today, it is rarely covered in snow along its entire length.

The slow retreat of the snow is often discussed in Tyrol as an economic loss, but it can also be experienced as a poetic loss. In one of his books, the sociologist Hartmut Rosa asks: “Do you still remember the first snowfall in late autumn or winter during your childhood? It was like the arrival of another reality. Something shy, something rare, that comes to visit us, that descends and transforms the world around us without our doing, like an unexpected gift.” [4]

This kind of joy, says Rosa, is unlikely to arise with artificial snow. Yet it is precisely in the experience of this impossibility that the sociologist also finds a measure of hope. Vitality, according to Rosa, requires an encounter with all that is beyond our reach. [5] Just because we cannot plan or order the snow, just because it does not fall in overwhelming abundance, it can be a gift from heaven. For how much longer?

The climate crisis can be described as a myriad of losses, both large and small. But who mourns them? When the Pizol Glacier had shrunk so much in 2019 that it had to be removed from the Swiss monitoring network, various environmental organisations, together with church initiatives, invited people to a memorial service in the Glarus Alps. Those in mourning came dressed in black; an alphorn was blown as a farewell, and the Pizol Glacier was declared dead. [6] “It is as if a good friend were dying,” [7] said glaciologist Matthias Huss.

We know that global warming and the losses it brings are caused by humans. Why do so many of us – myself included – find it hard to act on this knowledge?

In the late 1970s, the doctor Elisabeth Kübler-Ross identified five stages of grief based on conversations with the terminally ill. [8]Four years after her death, ecologist Steven Running used these stages to describe how people react to the climate crisis: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. [9] In 2019, David Kessler formulated a sixth stage: finding meaning [10]. If we accept the facts, can we each, in our own way, be part of the solution, as climate researcher Helga Kromp-Kolb suggests? [11]

Amidst all the bad news, there is also some good news: “Even if we don’t have much time left, we still have influence” [12], says climate scientist Georg Kaser. “Perhaps,” comments philosopher Michael Hirsch, “the monument to snow has arrived just in time. It already offers a space for our grief today. This is delicately linked to something like hope: perhaps our grieving can help us to do things, both personally and politically, that most people consider highly unlikely.” [13]

And who knows? Perhaps hidden within our farewell to the world as we know it lies the beginning of a new world [14].

Esther Strauß

References
[1] S . Fuchs, W. Schöner, R. Steiger, et al. (2025): The Austrian Alps as a multi-dimensional focal area., in: Huppmann, D/ Keiler, M/Riahi, K et al. (eds.): Second Austrian Assessment Report on Climate Change (AAR2) of the Austrian Panel on Climate Change (APCC), Vienna 2025, p. 5.
[2] Conversationwith Georg Kaser, May 2025.
[3] Alpine Club Hall in Tirol: Glungezer Hut: Significance of the hut. URL: https://www.glungezer-huette.at/huette/bedeutung/ (accessed: 10 May 2026).
[4] Rosa , Hartmut: Unavailability, Berlin 2020, p. 7.
[5] Cf. Rosa: Unavailability (as in note 4), p. 7ff.
[6] Cf. Schrader, Christopher: Talking about Climate: The Handbook, Munich 2022, p. 360.
[7] Schrader: Handbook (as in note 6), p. 360.
[8] See Schrader: Handbook (as in note 6), p. 362.
[9]See Schrader: Handbook (as in note 6), p. 363ff.
[10] Kessler , David: Finding Meaning: The Sixth Stage of Grief, New York City 2020.
[11] Kromp-Kolb, Helga: It Is Too Late for Pessimism: We Are Part of the Solution, Vienna – Graz 2023.
[12]Conversation with Georg Kaser, February 2026.
[13] Telephone conversationwith Michael Hirsch, January 2025.
[14] Schneider, Birgit: The Dawn of a New World, Berlin 2023.

Esther Strauß

Esther Strauß (born 1986 in Tarrenz, Tyrol) is a performance and language artist. In her works, Strauß deliberately employs gaps and secrets. What her works conceal is just as important as what they reveal. She has exhibited internationally, including at the Sigmund Freud Museum in London, Perdu in Amsterdam and TAXISPALAIS Kunsthalle Tirol. Her works are occasionally referenced in texts by Elfriede Jelinek and Katy Hessel. She has received numerous awards, most recently the RLB Art Prize 2024, the Paul Flora Prize 2022 and the BMKOES State Scholarship 2021. Since 2015, Strauß has been teaching at the University of Art and Design Linz how artists can speak, write and remain silent about their own work. www.estherstrauss.info

Start: Tulfes, Glungezerbahn valley station

Glungezerbahn
Glungezerstraße 14
6075 Tulfes

Glungezerbahn opening hours
Mon–Sun: 08:30–17:00
Please note the last descent!

For current opening times and evening runs, please check the Glungezerbahn website: www.glungezerbahn.at

Curator

MMag. Hannes Gründhammer