Gjaidalm

The Gjaidalm is a high alpine pasture covering 3 000 hectares in the Dachstein range above Obertraun. It sits at 1 738 metres where the limestone peaks rise above the tree line. The land belongs to the Austrian Federal Forests and about twenty cattle graze its thirty usable hectares. A former hunting lodge now serves walkers and skiers as a simple refuge with beds and a dining room. The whole area lies within the Hallstatt–Dachstein World Heritage Site where archaeologists have uncovered traces of Bronze Age herders. The pastures have been used since Roman times, with Bronze Age fire layers and medieval finds confirming continuous high-altitude farming. The name comes from the old local word for hunting, and the hut was once called the Schilcherhaus after its first keeper Josef Schilcher. In the 1930s the Austrian army built a supply cable car and barracks here for mountain training. After the Second World War Josef Schilcher turned the barracks into a tourist hut and later his son Hans ran it as a ski school base. Today the Simonyhütte’s owner Michael Haid runs the refuge, offering guided ski tours, snowshoe hikes and climbing routes year round. Walkers reach the hut from Obertraun in three to four hours or from Hallstatt in four to six. The Dachstein cable-car from Obertraun stops at the Krippenstein station only an hour’s walk away, while longer routes lead to the Wiesberghaus, Simonyhütte or the Taubenkogel summit. Inside the refuge there are three dining rooms seating a hundred inside and a hundred and fifty on the terrace, alongside fifty beds and fifty mattresses. Outside, the open meadows stretch towards sheer limestone walls and the high plateau where the wind carries the sound of cattle bells across the grass.