Moor nature trail on the Teichalm

The Teichalm bog is the only mountain pine raised bog in the Grazer Bergland. It is one of the last mountain pine raised bogs in Austria with a special flora and fauna.

The moorland nature trail is free to walk, with a viewing platform and comfortable benches inviting you to linger. The path leads over larch planks, boards provide information about the special features of this natural jewel. The entrance is between Teichalmsee and the Latschenhütte.

The circular route takes about 30 minutes and is also accessible with a wheelchair or buggy! The trail is closed in winter due to ice!

The moorland nature trail is open from April to October.

More information about the hike:

Teichalm circuit with high moor

POINT 1: Start at the Teichalmsee next to the Latschenhütte.

POINT 2: If you walk a little further, you come to an elevated platform. Here you get a particularly beautiful view of the Latschenhochmoor and the Teichalmsee. Information boards provide lots of interesting facts about the formation of the moor.

POINT 3: If you walk along the Mixnitzbach stream, you will find the entrance to the natural alder wood at this point.

POINT4: After crossing point 3, you will reach a rest stop. This is intended for rest and meditation. The roofed round building offers a view of a moor meadow where the rare species of moor gentian and cotton grass can be found.

POINT 5: Here the path continues through a moorland spruce forest to a rest area (6).

POINT6: You can leave the area via a bridge in the direction of Teichalmsee. This concludes the tour through the moor.

A wealth of information along the route is summarized in this guide, which is available at the Latschenhütte , the Fladnitz municipal office and the Almenland office .

The mountain pine bog is a raised bog. The peat moss cushions usually form hilly clumps. These are separated from each other by depressions (Schlenken). Plants that live in raised bogs are specialists that can cope with the wet, acidic bog soil and its lack of nutrients. These include, for example, the sheath cottongrass with white-tufted fruiting stems.

Some plants, such as the sundew, have developed insect traps in order to cover their nitrogen requirements in this way. If the bog is disturbed by over-fertilization or drainage, the specialists lose their competitive advantage and are displaced by common species. The Grauerlenau along the Mixnitzbach stream is rich in undergrowth species such as butterbur, marsh marigold, cowslip, wood anemone, meadowsweet and horse mint.

Areas of fenland extend adjacent to the floodplain and moorland forest. Sour grasses dominate here. However, many colorful flowering plants also have their habitat here, such as the spring gentian, the pale violet marsh violet, the cuckoo flower, the purple broad-leaved cinquefoil and, as a special feature, the bluish flowering bog gentian.

It is the extreme conditions, such as the high degree of waterlogging, the lack of lime and nutrients and the lack of plant diversity, that allow only a few "specialists" to permanently colonize the moorland. These are actually mostly representatives of insects or arachnids, i.e. small to tiny forms. We practically never see them on a moorland hike.

However, the diversity of species increases rapidly towards the outside, along the streams and rivulets. Animal species occur here that are only occasionally found in the moor itself. One striking species is the pretty mother-of-pearl butterfly. It gets its name from the mother-of-pearl-like coloration of the undersides of its wings. In spring, a particularly large number of tadpoles can be observed in the many puddles and pools. These are mostly grass frogs, which prefer to colonize shady habitats close to water.

Larvae of the common damselfly also develop in larger pools of water. They usually take two whole years to do so, while the adult insect can be observed for a maximum of 4 weeks.