Vorder Grauspitz

Where is Vorder Grauspitz?

Vorder Grauspitz is part of the Rätikon.

You will find it in: Liechtenstein.

Summit: 47.053° N, 9.582° E

The story behind it

The name of the peak says what it looks like: a grey point of limestone, split into loose plates and ledges by frost that pries the rock apart winter after winter. The mountain sits at the end of a long border ridge, with Liechtenstein falling away to the north and the Swiss canton of Graubünden to the south. There is no marked path to the top and no cross on it, only a faint line of footprints across steep grass and then broken rock that slides underfoot, so it is climbed mainly by experienced mountaineers, often roped together. Chamois cross the slabs easily, alpine choughs circle in the wind, and small tough flowers such as saxifrage grow in cracks where a little soil has collected. Snow fields can survive in the shady hollows until midsummer, long after the valleys have turned green.

Find it on the globe

Vorder Grauspitz is there as a small peak with its own shape — a horn, a ridge, a volcano — standing on the surface. From far away the planet is only a blue ball; detail arrives as you zoom in, and this one appears once you are close enough. Open it on the globe.

It sits at its real coordinates, not near them — the same numbers listed in the facts above. Switch off the layer for this kind of place and it disappears again; the buttons for that are down the right-hand edge.