Steven's Peak-bagging Journey

August 28, 2025

2351m

Liezen, Austria

Grimming is a large monolith of sandstone in northern Austria and boasts over 1500 m prominence even though it’s far from being a lofty peak by the Alps standard. The standard route is an easy via ferrata ascent. Experienced scramblers would not need to bring a harness as the route is at most Grade B, but this is a long and committing route with fair amount of route-finding and exposure. For the past few weeks Adam and I had been connecting with James Barlow and Arjan van Denzen and the plan was eventually made to meet up for at least Grimming. We had a few days of overlap but the weather was only “bomber” for the first day, and we would use this day for the hardest of the few proposed objectives. Grimming is not as physically demanding as Großer Priel but is technically more challenging.

James and Arjan would come down in their own vehicle so we planned to camp separately and meet up in the early morning at 6 am. Random car-camping in Austria is illegal but the law is poorly enforced, such that finding a sneaky spot to pitch the tents had been fairly easy throughout this trip. Adam, Erica and I eventually opted for a dirt road next to some ranchlands, and we got the tents erected at dusk. This spot was only 2 km from the actual trail-head so we had a short drive in the morning. James and Arjan were already there by the time we pulled in.

James had been recovering from a near-death accident so we wouldn’t be plodding at a blistering pace, and that was fine. Adam volunteered to go ahead and the pace he set was much slower than the day before on Hochkönig. In the previous day I thought Adam simply could not walk at a slower pace but apparently that was not true. Erica and I did not bother to bring our harnesses but the rest of the group decided to do the climb “properly” by actually using the via ferrata kits. Erica and I mostly stayed behind but we did scramble ahead a few times. The scrambling was at most “class 3” if using the artificial holds and chains. At one point we ascended into an amphitheatre feature and this marked the start of the upper route. The immediate next while would be plodding up a scree trail.

I relied on James for being meticulous on the research because I personally don’t like reading as much. This meant I would have absolutely no idea of what’s coming up next, but the route-finding was actually quite obvious. There could have 5 painted markers in a span of 20 meters so even the blindest person could not seemingly get lost on this mountain. The upper route was again, mostly 3rd class. There were fair amount of unprotected scrambling in between the via ferrata pitches. Eventually the grade petered out and we plodded across the plateau to the highest point.

This ascent was rather uneventful and so was the descent. We mostly stayed together and encountered a handful parties on their way up. The rockfall was a bit of a concern but the situation wasn’t too bad. Our round trip time was over 7 hours and then we all drove back into the towns for some much needed WiFi and grocery. The plan was eventually made to do Großer Priel on the following day. The weather was less than ideal but “good enough” to get the job done, but we weren’t expecting much in terms of views. For once we no longer needed to drive a few hours between the objectives so I took advantage of this rare oppourtunity to catch up with trip reports in the McDonald’s.