Once you have gained enough experience on via ferratas up to “C” grade, it is time to test your fitness on harder routes. Throwing yourself straight at the “E”s or “F”s would not be a good idea, though. First get the feel of a few “D” sections, so that you find out what parts graded that way actually involve. Ideally ones where the harder section can be avoided if the worst comes to the worst, which is not possible on every via ferrata. Finding out halfway up that you cannot climb a particular part has only one solution: dialling 112, calling out the rescue service and a scenic helicopter flight. Which does make a great story over a beer.
Intersport Klettersteig
This C/D via ferrata, built above the Gosausee lake in the Dachstein massif, is a fine test of your technical ability and of your stamina as well. Depending on how busy it is, you can spend more than 3 hours in the face! It is divided into 4 stages, and after each of them you can step off the route if you do not feel up to going on. Do shorten the approach with the cable car; otherwise you face a 2-hour walk up from the car park with 600 m of ascent. From the cable car to the first clip onto the cable is only 20 minutes.
Before the halfway point of the first stage there is a C/D part; if you manage that, you have essentially won. Nothing much harder is waiting for you. Two ladders and easy A and B passages follow. The treat comes on the second stage, where a long suspension bridge leading upwards was built in 2017. It is not technically hard, but it does take a little nerve (and unfortunately it can be bypassed).
At the start of the final stage comes the last harder spot, an exposed traverse with genuinely nothing beneath you; this one can be left out as well. After it the going is safe along the ridge all the way to the summit of Grosser Donnerkogel (2,050 m). Visitors to the Dachstein West ski resort know it as the rocky landmark with several pistes running below its western flank.
Throughout the climb this klettersteig serves up beautiful views of the Vorderer Gosausee lake and of the northern parts of the Dachstein with the Hallstätter Gletscher glacier.
Given the length of the whole via ferrata and the hour-and-a-half descent that follows, do not forget to take enough water and to buy a return ticket for the cable car (the last one leaves at about 16:45!).
Anyone with a little strength and enthusiasm left can nip across to the far shore of the lake for the “C-grade” fifty-minute training via ferrata Laserer alpin, which runs up the rock above the water.
Echernwand Klettersteig
If there is anywhere you can run into crowds of Japanese tourists, it is Prague, Krumlov and Hallstatt. One place you may not run into them is the Echerwand via ferrata. It starts a short way beyond the bottom station of the rack railway, with a short ladder to warm up on. The climb of about 90 minutes gives you a bird’s-eye view of the Hallstätter See, three C/D sections, one airy “D” (which can be got round on a “C”) and a treat in the form of a ladder leaning out from the wall, which you climb on its inner side.
All the better to see what you did not want to see: how high you are and how far down the bottom is. From the end of the via ferrata a few minutes’ walk brings you to the medieval Rudolfsturm fortress, with a restaurant, souvenirs and a skywalk looking out over the Hallstatt area.
Seewand klettersteig
Now this is a real challenge, as the D/E grade makes clear. Once you start up the route, you have to climb it. There is room for a longer rest in only one place, roughly halfway. Careful: the hardest passages come right at the end, when you have left a lot of your strength on the staples below you. Do not underestimate the equipment or the provisions – you will spend more than 4 hours in the face. Add an approach of about an hour and a descent of up to two and a half hours. The descent can be replaced by the cable car if you are at the top station before the last cabin leaves.
From the upper end of the via ferrata you can carry on all the way to the summit of Dachstein, but that really is for Robocops only!
Johansbach klettersteige
Does the mere sight of the letter D or E, or F, in a via ferrata’s grade put fear in your eyes? Are you afraid you will get stuck on a hard section, unable to go on or back? Then what you need is practice at a relatively modest height, but on a route that is hard enough. Johansbach klettersteige meets those criteria, on the boundary of the Gesäuse National Park (road no. L743). The approach is short and the car park is almost directly beneath the via ferrata, but far enough to one side that no via ferrata climber lands on your car.
Personally I consider this crag an excellent training area, where you can practise via ferratas of every grade. The one thing it lacks is an “F”. The individual parts can be combined and mixed as your appetite and fitness dictate. The via ferrata is by the river, above which a suspension bridge is strung, leading to an iron platform on the far bank. From there you can only abseil off or go back the same way, over the bridge above the raging river.
It sounds lovely, idyllic. But there is one blemish on this beauty of a via ferrata. On the rock at the start there is a sign saying that the klettersteig is private and that a fee must be paid to use it. How and where to pay it, the sign does not say. If it bothers you to climb for free and you would still like to contribute, try asking at the nearby petrol station or at the Gasthof Donner. It is probably not worth agonising over. Just climb, and pay if somebody turns up. Don’t stress!
In the Austrian Alps you will find plenty of demanding, airy via ferratas where you are driven along by the sugar from your morning doughnut and by sheer enthusiasm for vertical movement, which ought to be mainly upwards. Whether you go for Der Johann Klettersteig in the north face of the Dachstein, Königsjodler in the Salzburger Kalkalpen or any other, I wish you a sure step, fine weather and a quick recovery from the muscle ache once you have done it.
There are no limits to courage!