The scenic route crosses the Alpine divide in a tunnel and runs southwards passing another branch-off which leads to the Glocknerhaus mountain hut and the Kaiser-Franz-Josefs-Höhe visitors' centre at 2,369 m (7,772 ft).

It offers a panoramic view over the Pasterze Glacier, the Grossglockner massif, the Glocknerwand, and the Johannisberg in the northwest.

The impulse for building a road, which was meant to open up the barren alpine valleys to motorized tourism, was given by the New York stock market slump in 1929.

The project was extended to a width of 6 metres (20 ft) to serve the needs of the "excessive international traffic" – which was roundly mocked – in the belief that an annual 120,000 visitors would come.

A year later, on 3 August 1935, the Grossglockner High Alpine Road was opened and put into full service a day later with an international automobile and motorcycle race.

In the years 1936 and 1937, 350 men shovelled 250,000 cubic metres (8,800,000 cu ft) of snow in an average of seventy days to keep at least one lane on the road free.

Since 1953, the five Wallack rotary plows, and twelve GROHAG workers, have been clearing 600,000 to 800,000 cubic metres (21,000,000 to 28,000,000 cu ft) of snow from the road and parking areas in around fourteen days every year in April.