and souvenirs. But there is no grocery store or gasoline station in Turracher Höhe, for example. For a long time, there was also no church or chapel. An ecumenical place of worship was not built until 1985, at the suggestion of the inhabitants. It is administered by the parish of Stadl an der Mur and is available for all Christian creeds. Climate There is plenty of sunshine during the entire year. Due to the high altitude, there is significantly less cloudiness and fog than in the Drau valley, for example. Thus, the average prevailing temperatures are also favorable: the average temperature in January is between -5.9 and -8.2 °C, in July it is between 10.6 and 11.0 °C, and the yearly median is 1.9 to 2.2 °C. By comparison, Klagenfurt, with a height of 447 m above sea level, is 1300 m lower than Turracher Höhe. Its average temperature in January is -5.8 °C, its average temperature in July is 18.3 °C, and its yearly median is 7.7 °C. The precipitation of 1,218 mm is rather low for the mountains. Snowfall normally starts in October at the latest, and a dense blanket of snow quickly forms, which remains until April or sometimes even until May. On average, there is snow for 158 days on Turracher Höhe. History First settlements The name Turrach is derived from the old term, "Durrach", which was used for a forest, where there are a lot of fallen, dried up ("dürr") trees lying around. The term is widely used in Carinthia, as well as in the rest of Austria. While the region around today's Predlitz and the Mur was already colonised by Slavs in the 6th century, the first clearings and settlements south of Turracher Höhe are known to be from the early 14th century. Politically, the region was initially part of the duchy of Carinthia, but it was already divided among three territories in the 12th and 13th centuries, due to the splitting off of the Lungau to Salzburg and Murau to the duchy of Styria. Until tourism began to develop in the late 1920s, there had only been a few farmsteads north and south of the pass summit since the late Middle Ages, but no compact settlement. Also Turracher Höhe played no role as a traffic route for a long time. During the Middle Ages and early modern times, connections over the Katschberg in