Piz Buin

Piz Buin is a mountain in the Silvretta range of the Alps on the border between Austria and Switzerland. It forms the border between the Swiss canton of Graubünden and the Austrian state of Vorarlberg and is the highest peak in Vorarlberg.

Its original name in the Romansh language is Piz Buin Grond. A similar but smaller summit nearby is called Piz Buin Pitschen at 3,255 m (10,680 ft). Piz Buin was first climbed on 14 July 1865 by Joseph Anton Specht and Johann Jakob Weilenmann, guided by Jakob Pfitscher and Franz Pöll. Piz Buin Pitschen was climbed three years later.

Piz Buin can be reached from the Wiesbadener hut, crossing the Vermunt glacier, climbing up the Wiesbadener ridge and hiking over the Ochsentaler Glacier to the Buin gap. From the gap there is a zigzag walk to the top, with only a 20 m (65 ft) steep step to surmount before reaching the relatively flat summit space, which has an old wooden cross on the very top. The border between Switzerland and Austria crosses the summit from East to West.

Geology and Flora
Piz Buin, like its surrounding peaks, is made up of crystalline rock from the Silvretta, which consists mainly of gneiss. In contrast to the higher peaks of Piz Linard and Fluchthorn, which are mainly composed of hornblende gneiss (and schist), Piz Buin is composed of lighter granite and eye gneiss. The vegetation is, as generally in the higher regions of the Silvretta, composed of crystalline rock.

The vegetation is sparse, as is generally the case in the higher regions of the Silvretta, and consists of rock and debris-dwelling plants of the nival stage. In addition to lichens and mosses, the glacier buttercup should be mentioned, which even flowers on the summit of Piz Buin.

Name and History
Piz Buin is a Rhaeto-Romanic name meaning 'Ox Peak', with the 'Buin' stressed on the second syllable. The almost flat valley floor at the end of the Ochsental, which is now flooded by the Silvretta reservoir, used to be pastureland. Grazing animals are still kept in the vicinity of the reservoir.

The original Rhaeto-Romanic name is Piz Buin Grond (Great Piz Buin), as opposed to the smaller Piz Buin, Piz Buin Pitschen.

Other names that are hardly used today were "Albuinkopf" in Vorarlberg and "Albainkopf" in Tyrol.

The first ascent was made on 14 July 1865 by Josef Anton Specht and Johann Jakob Weilenmann, accompanied by Jakob Pfitscher and Franz Pöll. Their original plan was to reach the Wiesbadener Grätle from the Bielerhöhe from the east, cross it and climb to the Buinlücke (3054m) via the gently sloping upper part of the ice stream, now called the Ochsentaler Glacier.

However, as an ascent via the (still existing) icefall to the north-west of the Wiesbadener Grätle promised faster progress, they left the Grätle to the east and reached the summit via the Buinlücke and the west flank in five hours.

The first descent was back to the Buinlücke. The route continued along the northern foot of the smaller Piz Buin to the saddle south of the Signalhorn, the "Fuorcla dal Cunfin", and from there through the Swiss Val Tuoi to Klosters.

The names of the glaciers in the Piz Buin area used to be different from those used today:

In his description of the first ascent, Weilenmann referred to the ice field now commonly known as the "Vermunt Glacier", framed by the Dreiländerspitze, Vermuntpaß, Piz Buin and Wiesbadener Grätle, as the "Fermunt - or Ochsenthal Glacier" and the "Main Glacier". The ice stream surrounded by the Wiesbadener Grätle, the Buinen, the Signalhorn and the Silvrettahorn, now called the Ochsentaler Glacier, over which the first ascent was made, he saw as a "side glacier" of the ice field now called the Vermuntgletscher.

Even Hermine and Walther Flaig, in an essay ("100 Jahre Piz Buin") to mark the centenary of the first ascent, spoke of a "crevasse labyrinth of the western Vermunt glacier", referring to the icefall of the present-day Ochsental glacier.

At the time of the first ascents, both glaciers joined below the Grüne Kuppe (2579 m) in front of the Wiesbadener Grätli to the north, forming a medial moraine. Today, they have been greatly reduced by glacial melting and are separate ice fields, widely separated by the Wiesbadener Grätle and the Grüne Kuppe.

On 13 September 1936, Vorarlberg's first summit cross was erected on Piz Buin. The Christian-socialist Vorarlberger Volksblatt described the highly symbolic action as a "sign that this country is and will remain Christian despite all the attacks of the 'conquerors of Christianity'" (meaning the Communists and the Nazis) and described the transport of the cross to the summit as a "crusade of the Reichsbund", which "can hardly be explained physically, but can only be understood by the faith that moves mountains". In the summer of 2012, a new summit cross was flown to the mountain on behalf of the ÖAV, after the previous one, believed to date from the 1950s, had weathered and become misaligned.

Trivia
The mountain also gives its name to the 'Piz Buin' sun protection products of the pharmaceutical company Johnson & Johnson. The chemist Franz Greiter was sunburned while climbing the peak in 1938 and in the following years developed the sunscreen of the same name.