Moving Mountains

The rockface crashed across the road

Nowhere else have I seen so many baggers as here in Austria – a bagger is a small, wheeled or tracked excavator with a backhoe or bucket. Embach with about 500 residents produces enough activity to keep its own earthmoving business busy and Ernst Röck and his bagger are always active somewhere around.

It appears that if someone wants the mountains re-arranged, then Ernst and his bagger can do it.

The latest challenge has been the 40m long rock slide that has been blocking the road between Embach and sister village Lend for more than a month. (see September’s Bogensperger blog) It was decided that the job had to be tackled from the top, rather than just shift what has fallen down. Effectively a small mountain has to be shifted…but where?

Lend's Heimo Gruber's bagger removing the rockslide - starting from the top - the rockface fell to the road and railway below

A farmer, further up the hill, with a steeply sloping field seized the opportunity to have the mountain moved to where it will substantially level this part of his plot. So, daily, a convoy of trucks grind their way from the valley to half-way up the road to Embach, dump their loads and trundle down again while the local bagger men push the rubble about and once again re-arrange the landscape.


Rearranging the landscape - the mountain which fell down, is now relocated
300m higher than at its original  site