The GEOPARC Bletterbach, South Tyrol’s largest canyon, enthralls visitors with a trip through time back into Earth’s very early history.
Route: the hike begins at the GEOPARC Bletterbach visitors centre and leads via trail no. 3 (long distance hiking trail E5) down into the so-called “Taubenleck” gorge and continues to the GeoMuseum in Redagno/Radein, where special fossil discoveries from the Bletterbachschlucht gorge are displayed.
It is recommended that you return via the same route into the Taubenleck gorge. Head through the narrow porphyry gorge upstream over hill and down dale to the large waterfall. Return just below the waterfall on the Jägersteig trail and then turn right and follow the forest road back to the visitors centre.
A quick detour to the visitors centre will divulge the secrets of the stones! The Bletterbach gorge needed 15,000 years to reach its current length of 8 km and depth of 400 m by working through the layers of rock. Over the years, it carried away over 10 million tonnes of stone, exposing layers with fossils extending back to the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous periods over 250 million years ago.
