Reißeck

The Reißeck, also Großes Reißeck is, at 2,965 metres above the Adriatic, the highest peak of the Reißeck Group in the High Tauern of Carinthia, Austria. The range forms the southern part of the larger Ankogel Group with its highest summit, the Hochalmspitze, separated by the col of Mallnitzer Scharte at 2,673 m. The mountain also gives its name to the Reißeck municipality, located to the south in the Möll valley.

The name Reißeck is derived from an old waterbody name, something like Reisach = "mountain stream" or "torrent", which became the Middle High German rîs = "the falling one".West and south of the summit block lie the reservoirs of the Verbund Reißeck-Kreuzeck hydropower group, connected with the neighbouring Kölnbrein Dam in the Malta Valley. The Reisseck Railway funicular and the narrow-gauge Reisseck Mountain Railway, built in the 1950s for the construction of the power station, later ran passenger services and was used for the access of tourists from the Möll valley up to the…