Gesäuse trip report.
The Gesäuse, aka Xeis in the local dialect, aka Ennstal Alps, is an alpine area in central Austria. I had never heard of it in the English speaking climbing world before I moved over here, but it seems to be pretty central to Austrian climbing culture and mythology - probably helped by being the nearest major alpine area to Vienna.
I first visited the area on a rafting trip with work a few years ago. Walked past the Ödstein south face on the Sunday and took note of a very large expanse of immaculate looking rock. So when some friends from the Munich DAV planned a climbing trip, I jumped at the chance.
So, based on two short visits and a grand total of one and a half routes, one grounded raft - but quite a lot of hiking around looking at things and talking to locals - here are my impressions.
It's one of the most beautiful alpine areas I've ever been to and relatively quiet and friendly compared to say the Dolomites or the Kaisergebirge. There are three main climbing areas.
Main range north side: Haindlkar. Impressive looking north face routes with the actual climbing on immaculate rock. Nice hut with friendly staff and decent food. Routes ranging from ten to well north of twenty pitches, styles varying from lightly retrobolted classics to modern multipitch sport (with a few old aid routes freed on the original crap gear for laughs. Fifteen pitch 7b+ on thirty year old rotting pegs anybody?) The fly in the ointment is the approaches. Even from the nice hut they are long and strenuous, and many of them involve large amounts of scrambling on death choss in order to reach the immaculate rock.
Buchstein. Smaller area across the valley from the main range. Not so many routes, but south facing and quick drying in case of changeable weather. Approach to the routes from the hut short and refreshingly un-life-threatening. Even nicer hut than the Haindlkar, with excellent food, fantastic views, run by a friendly and good looking Austrian climber chick.
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Ödstein-Hochtor south face. Have only walked past the base of these, but they look impressive. Huge sweeps of water runnel slabs with routes up to twenty pitches. Rock quality looks fantastic, but according to the guidebook the harder routes tend to have very run out bolting with not much chance of supplementing with natural gear. No hut, approaches and descents long and strenuous but safe.
But a word about grades. The locals are proud of their harsh grading, which is ok up to a point. But the grades here are sandbagged by a solid grade to a grade and a half, and I'm not comparing to Kalymnos. I'm comparing to other eastern Alps limestone areas, for example the Kaisergebirge, which themselves don't exactly have a reputation for soft touches. This is just bollocks. The purpose of grades in a climbing guidebook is to tell me about what routes I might reasonably attempt, not about the locals' historical penis size insecurity.
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But grading apart, fantastic area. I'll be back*
* The Gesäuse is in Steiermark, the capital of which is Graz. And Graz' most famous son is ...
