At 3097 metres, the Pflerscher Tribulaun is the highest mountain in the eastern main ridge of the Stubai Alps. It lies directly on the border between South Tyrol/Italy and Austria. It borders the Tyrolean Gschnitztal valley to the north and the South Tyrolean Pflerschtal valley to the south. The mountain itself consists mainly of main dolomite and quartz phyllite.
Signs near the mountain inform us that the French nobleman, geologist and mineralogist Déodat Guy Sylvain Tancrède Gratet de Dolomieu took two lumps of limestone from the Pflersch Valley and the area around Salurn during excursions in the Tyrolean mountains in 1789 and 1790 and handed them over to the Geneva chemist and botanist Nicolas-Théodore de Saussure for examination. In 1792, de Saussure published the article "Analyse de la dolomie" and thus gave the mineral and rock the name it still bears today. They were thus named after their discoverer, Dolomieu. It was only after the First World War, more than 100 years later, that the term dolomite came to be used not only for the type of rock and the mineral, but for an entire region. It is interesting to note that the mountain ranges that we call the Dolomites today are located quite a distance south-east of the Pflersch Valley (for example in Val Gardena, Val Badia and Val Pusteria).
The ascent of the Tribulaun is certainly one of the most difficult "normal routes". Nevertheless, it is a very rewarding tour in secluded alpine terrain.
