A new cable car to the top of Zugspitze, Germany's tallest mountain, will open on December 21st, making engineering history, as did its 1963 predecessor which closed last year to allow the new construction.
The new system will be able to move 600 visitors an hour from its base in the Bavarian ski resort town of Garmisch Partenkirchen. Work at the bottom is complete, and work at the top is nearly so, with the completion of the cables, which are just under two miles long. The equipment of the old lift was used to haul them up. There's also a cog-driven train that goes to the top.
Construction at the top is making use of Germany's tallest crane. The 100 workers at the top station are working in heavy padded clothing, some of them secured by ropes, because it's already winter at the top, with freezing snow and high winds.
While completion of the work is a big event in the area, not everyone is happy; some question the area's ability to take on even more visitors, with weekend traffic jams on the roads between Munich and Garmisch already a regular occurrence. Two tunnels that are expected to relieve some of that are not yet finished.
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