Outdoor climbing in Austria: crags, boulders and via ferratas

Austria's rock is as varied as its mountains: smooth limestone in the hills around Vienna and the Northern Limestone Alps, gneiss and granite in the high valleys of Tyrol, Salzburg and Carinthia. Here's where to start, from bouldering in the Zillertal to the crags you can reach from Vienna by train, plus the via ferratas Austria has been building since the 1840s.

Bouldering

The Zillertal in Tyrol is Austria's best-known bouldering area, with more than a thousand problems on gneiss and some granite spread through its side valleys. Zillergrund Wald alone has around 320, the Kaserler Alm about 90 from 4B to 8A in a family-friendly setting, and there are more at the Klausenalm and Breitlahner and around Ginzling. The Zemmschlucht isn't a place for children, because water is released from the reservoirs above it. The Alpenverein's Zillertal section looks after the areas with the landowners, and wild camping and campfires aren't allowed.

In Carinthia, the Maltatal has been climbed since the 1980s, on granite gneiss crags and boulders, and has some of Austria's hardest problems: Klem Loskot made the first ascent of Bügeleisen in 2001, and Nalle Hukkataival climbed a harder variant in 2014. High in the Silvretta, the bouldering above Galtür, more than 2,000 metres up, is a summer area, home to Bernd Zangerl's Anam Cara (8B+). Other areas include the Felbertauern's granite, the limestone of the Saalachtal near Lofer and the Pitztal's Mandlers Boden.

Sport climbing

The Wilder Kaiser near Kufstein is famous for alpine classics such as the Totenkirchl and the Fleischbank, and for steep sport crags: the Schleierwasserfall above Going has more than 160 routes, many of them in the tenth and eleventh UIAA grades, and the Achleiten has about 150, in the sun from January. The Ötztal has about 700 sport routes and 55 multi-pitch routes at 21 spots, among them family-friendly crags at Oberried, Piburg and the Engelswand.

In Styria, the Gesäuse national park has sport crags around Johnsbach, such as the Alter Klettergarten and the Gsengplatte, graded from 3 to 10-. Its rules are a good guide to climbing anywhere in Austria: climb only between sunrise and sunset, stay on the paths, take your litter home, keep dogs on a lead, don't light fires or camp, and leave routes closed for nesting birds alone. New bolts are placed only with the local Alpenverein section.

Near Vienna

Vienna's climbers have rock on their doorstep. The Efeufelsen in Mödling, reached by S-Bahn and a walk, has 44 bolted routes from grade 2 to 10-. The Peilstein in the Vienna Woods has hundreds of well-bolted routes on smooth limestone in about 25 sectors, and the south-facing Hohe Wand, eight kilometres long and up to 200 metres high, has more than 1,500 routes and is often warm and sunny in winter, when fog lies in the valleys. Boulderers head for the Hirschwände and Hausstein near Pernitz, with nearly 200 problems.

Via ferratas

The geographer Friedrich Simony had the first via ferrata in the Alps built on the Hoher Dachstein in the early 1840s. Known in Austria as Klettersteige, they're graded on the Schall scale from A (easy) to E (extremely difficult): B is roughly the second to third climbing grade, and C the third to fourth. The Alpenverein's advice is to use a standard via ferrata set and a helmet, keep to one person on each section of cable, and keep something in reserve: exhaustion is the most common emergency. In an emergency in the mountains, call 140.

When to go

Most valley crags are climbed from spring to autumn, while the high bouldering areas such as the Silvretta and the Felbertauern are summer destinations. In winter, look for sunny, low-lying crags such as the Hohe Wand and the Achleiten. And when it rains, Austria has plenty of climbing halls: KI Kletterzentrum Innsbruck, for example, has outdoor walls of its own as well as its indoor halls. Before you rope up indoors, read what Austrian halls ask of roped climbers, and see our guide to climbing in Austria for where to climb.