The Five Fingers
A metal hand over the void, the village a toy below.
Andreas Stiasny — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Draceane — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Draceane — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Draceane — CC BY-SA 3.0
Krippenstein is Hallstatt's adventurous roof: the Obertraun cable car (across the lake from the village) climbs the Dachstein in two stages to 2,100 metres — and above waits a trilogy rarely gathered on one mountain: the Five Fingers, a metal hand's platform stretching its digits over a four-hundred-metre drop with lake and village as toys below — the Alps' most photographed viewing structure; the Giant Ice Cave with its eternal frozen domes and bridges; and the Mammut Cave's colossal voids. The path between station and platforms is an easy mountain hour amid glacier-peak scenes — with the Shark and the Cosmic Viewpoint as bonus platforms en route. It is Hallstatt's complete second day — tickets in tiers: Panorama (car + platforms) or all-in with the caves: weigh weather and hours before the window.
A metal hand over the void, the village a toy below.
Eternal frozen domes with bridges and lights.
An easy hour between platforms in glacier view.
Winkl 34, 4831 Obertraun
Yes, with arithmetic: the car lifts everyone and the platform paths are easy and broad (serious shoes suffice) — the caves mean many cold stairs, right for the energetic from five up. The platforms' exposed heights are fully railed — true vertigo keeps to the path.