Austria, located in central Europe, is a mountainous country about the same size as Japan's Hokkaido, with 60% of its land area in the Alps, leaving behind a rich natural environment.
The highest peak in the Austrian Alps is the Großkrockner at 3,798 meters, which is about the same altitude as Japan's Mt. Fuji. What is completely different from Japan, however, is that there are around 600 peaks over 3,000m high in Austria.
As this shows, there are many climbing areas in Austria. The main rock climbing areas are the suburbs of Salzburg in central Austria and the Tyrol (Tirol) region around Innsbruck in western Austria.
Tirol has been known as center of sport climbing, on the other hand, Salzburg are many areas that offer great alpine style multi-pitch routes.
Sport Climbing sites in the Tyrol (Tirol)
What is amazing is that the Tyrol (Tirol) has the huge amount of bolted climbing route. They have more than 5.100 sport climbing routes, numerous multi pitches.
The rocks are granite and limestone. These climbing sites are located near each other. Granite wall is in the valleys south of the Innsbruck, such as Ötztal and Zillertal. Limestone crags is near the city of Innsbruck, such as Dschungelbuch and Ehnbachklamm.
The Climbing Season
The best time to rock climb is the spring and the autumn. The summer (from mid July to mid august) is hot, though it is possible to find walls that are in the shade.
📚Rock Climbing Guidebooks
There are two types of climbing topos near Tyrol (Tirol).
Sport climbing in Tirol
This climbing topo is covering the sport climbing around Innsbruck in the Tyrol state of Austria. All the routes are shown on colour photos, along with the route length. Maybe Vertical-Life app would be useful.
East Tyrol
This climbing topo contains the multi-pitch routes, single pitch sport crags and Via Ferratas in the East Tyrol region of Austria.
Access to the Climbing Area
The topo lists the time from the parking lot to the climbing area. The climbing area is relatively close to the parking lot, maybe 20min at the farthest.
There are also climbing sites that are relatively easy to approach for families with small children. For example, at the climbing site I went to, Oberried is family friendly crag.
Climbing Equipment
・single rope 70m
・10-15 quickdraws
Depends on the route you want to climb....
Most of the routes are possible with 14 quickdraws and a 70m rope. Normally there is no problem with this equipment.
The climbing areas I climbed in the Tyrol (Tirol, 2015)
Day 1 : Nassereith
Day 2 : Oberried
Day 3 : Niederthai
Day 4 : Bergstation (Ginzling)
Day 5 : Ewige Jagdgründe (Ginzling)
The approach from the parking lot to the climbing area was confusing, but the climbing area you want to go to is clearly visible, so I don't think you will get lost.
I didn't feel like I was climbing surrounded by the alps, but I enjoyed every route I climbed.
On this day, we ran into Adam Ondra's partner Iva Vejmolová in the Götterwandl area just as she was completing Odysseus (8b) 👏🏻 We had a chance to talk with Adam & Iva for a while. It was a nice memory 😊
The approach from the parking lot to the climbing area is easy, and the takeoff point was crowded with parents and children climbers, probably because of the grass.
The grass looks beautiful in the picture, but be careful because there are cow dung here and there 💩 😂
On this day, Jain Kim was climbing on Niederthai for a photo shoot. I was surprised to see her because she was so small. I was also surprised to see that they were using a drone for filming 😮 I guess this is the age of video (2015).
I was able to meet climbers from the Japan national team (Read WC). I was happy to be able to talk with them in Japanese for a short time 😂
I haven't written anything about my impressions of Niederthai, I only remember the violent Thunder Storm I encountered in Niederthai 🤣
This crag Bergstation (Ginzling) is amazing. It is ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ without any complaints.
The feeling of the crag is like Izu, jhoyama, Wild Boar in Japan. The wall is face or slightly overhang and the longest route is 40m long. I would like to come back here again if given the chance.
Ewige Jagdgründe is an area along the river with rocks 20~30 meters high. Because it is located along the river, it is very cool, and even on hot days 🥵 I'm not good at jumping on stones 🐸 so I gave up and walked in the river 😂 But the water was very cold 🥶
Accommodation :
⛺️ camping site
Aktiv Camping Imst
Schwimmbadweg 10, 6460 Gemeinde Imst
CampingPark Imst-West
Langgasse 62, 6460 Gemeinde Imst
✍🏻 I watched the IFSC Climbing World Cup (Lead, Imst, 2015) for the first time on my Austrian climbing tour 2015. At the time I was not interested in climbing competitions at all, so the only competitors I knew were Adam Ondra and Yuka Kobayashi 😅
A few years later, I met Sebastian Halenke at the crags and climbing gyms, and Recently, we have been able to talk to each other a little. Gautier Supper and I went climbing together and had aperitifs at a mutual acquaintance's house.
I never thought I'd get to hang out with people who were climbing at the Climbing World Cup (Imst 2015) 😂
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