Rock climbing around Innsbruck and Western Austria

Innsbruck is located in the Austrian state of Tyrol (Tirol in German) in the heart of the eastern Alps.  This area is home to many 1000’s of single pitch sport routes and is regarded as Austria’s premier sport climbing area.  There are routes to suit all styles across a wide range of grades from F3a to F9a+.  The main rock type is limestone, but there is also conglomerate, gneiss and granite found in the area.

(1) Around Innsbruck and Telfs there is a long tradition of sport climbing on limestone, gneiss and conglomerate rock.  These different rock types and locations provide a great variety of climbing with over 2,000 sport routes across over 40 different areas. The largest and best-known crags in this area are Dschungelbuch and Ehnbachklamm.

(2) Rock climbing in the Otztal and Pitztal valley. This granite valley hosts 12 major crags, such as Niederthai and Nosslach, with over 500 routes.

(3) Rock climbing around Imst consists of 16 major limestone crags with over 1,000 sport routes. Two of the largest crags in this area are Starkenbach and Nassereith.

(4) Reutte is located close to the German border. Again there are a number of limestone sport crags here with Weißwand and Kraftwerkwand being the classic crags of this area.

(5) Zillertal is probably the most famous climbing area near Innsbruck. This granite valley is located in a beautiful alpine valley with tiny mountain rivers surrounded by plenty of high peaks. Granite block of all shapes and sizes are scattered all around the valley that provide plenty of sport routes and great bouldering. In total there are 33 sport crags, with Ewige Jagdgründe being the stand out classic crag. The routes at majority of the crags are single pitch, though there are also bolted multi-pitch routes as well. There are also 17 bouldering areas including the classic areas of Zillergrund, Sundergrund and Ginzling.

(6) Rofan is located further east of Innsbruck, near Jenbach. Here there 7 sport climbing areas as well as some alpine style multi-pitch routes, all on great limestone rock.

To the north of Innsbruck and west towards Switzerland there are many areas that offer great alpine style multi-pitch routes at places such as Ratikon, Silvretta, and Wilder Kaiser.

Zillertal is the best place to go bouldering near Innsbruck, where there are 17 granite bouldering areas including the classic areas of Zillergrund Wald, Sundergrund and Ginzling. Zillergrund Wald is the largest of these areas, which is covered with an alpine coniferous forest. This shade along with the high altitude makes Zillergrund Wald a great summer location on hot days. Sundergrund is surrounded by steep mountains with great boulders located in a flat alpine meadow. There are boulders of all shapes and sizes that provide problems across a wide range of grades, which makes Sundergrund a popular place to go between April and October. The boulders at Ginzling are scattered in a sparse coniferous forest that, where the problems are either in the sun or shade, and therefore it is possible to boulder all year round. All of these bouldering areas are described in the Zillertal guidebook along over 30 sport crags that is available to buy from our shop.

Silvapark is another popular bouldering area, which is located further west of Innsbruck near Galtur, close to the border with Switzerland (not shown on the above map). The bouldering is situated on the north hillside of the Ballunspitbahn Mountain, at an altitude between 2,000m and 2,300m.  The bouldering is in a great alpine setting with glorious views, with all the climbing on extremely rough, big-grained gneiss rock.  There are nearly 600 problems at Silvapark across a wide range of grades with over half of them (331) in the Fb 5 to Fb 7c+ grade range.  The best time of the year to boulder at Silvapark is between June and October.  Silvretta-Block is the bouldering guidebook for Silvapark that describes 598 problems and is available to buy from our shop.

The Alpen en Bloc 2 guidebook covers the best of the bouldering found in Austria, including Zillertal, Silvapark, Kaunertal, Pitztal, Felbertauern, Maltatal, and Saalachtal.  Buy the Alpen en Bloc 2 guidebook from our shop.