Snapshot

Neukirchen am Großvenediger is a market town in the upper Pinzgau at the gateway to two spectacular glacial valleys leading into the Hohe Tauern National Park, birthplace of philosopher Leopold Kohr, and base for those approaching one of Austria’s highest and most remote peaks.

The Story

The two valleys that open south of Neukirchen, the Obersulzbachtal and the Untersulzbachtal, run deep into the Hohe Tauern National Park and belong to the least-visited and most intact alpine terrain in the Salzburg region. The Großvenediger at their head stands at 3,657 m, the fourth-highest peak in Austria, a heavily glaciated summit that requires serious equipment and mountain experience to reach. But the valleys themselves are accessible as day hikes, and they offer the kind of quiet, unmediated encounter with the High Tauern that the more famous routes around the Grossglockner cannot provide at the same level.

Leopold Kohr was born in Neukirchen in 1909. His book “The Breakdown of Nations”, published in 1957, argued that most of the world’s problems were caused by excessive scale, that nations, economies, and institutions had grown too large to function humanely. The ideas influenced E.F. Schumacher and seeded what later became the appropriate technology and small-is-beautiful movements. It is a particular kind of irony that someone from a small market town in the upper Pinzgau should have produced the century’s most systematic intellectual argument for the virtues of smallness.

The town itself has the character typical of Pinzgau market towns: a main square, a parish church, farmhouses converted to guesthouses, and the slightly unhurried pace of a place that has not been fully absorbed into the mass-tourism circuit. Winter skiing is available at a quieter local area, though the main draw remains the summer mountain access.

Planning

Neukirchen is on the Pinzgau railway and is reachable by train from Saalfelden or Zell am See to the east (grade B: verify current Pinzgauer Lokalbahn service schedule). By car, it is about 20 km west of Zell am See on the B165. The Sulzbach valleys are accessible on foot directly from the village; a full day for each valley is reasonable. For the Großvenediger summit, mountain guiding is strongly recommended; approach via the Kürsinger Hütte or Neue Prager Hütte (grade B: verify standard routes). Best visited May through October for hiking; winter for skiing. The Hohe Tauern National Park visitor infrastructure at Neukirchen provides trail information.