Steven's Peak-bagging Journey

August 9, 2025

2995m

Austria

Hoher Dachstein, the highest peak in Dachstein massif boasts over 2000 m prominence and is the second highest peak in the Northern Limestone Alps after Parseierspitze to the far west in Tyrol. The massif boasts 8 different glaciers and the highest peak sticks out as a rock tower. All routes involve some sort of via ferrata climbing but the approach can be significantly cut short by taking the gondola to 2600 m elevation. Most of the peakbaggers did take the gondola so I would do the same, though if I live in the area I probably would aim for one of the ferrata routes on the south face for the full experience. The ascent is still no “cake walk” from the top of the tram station due to the crossing of a glacier and the Grade B ferrata either via the east or the north face, but there’s not that much physical effort left.

I picked this objective for the day between Grossglockner and Wildspitze. This might seem crazy on paper because those were some of the bigger single-day pushes in this entire trip, and there were close to 10 hours of driving to link up these three objectives. The weather was excellent so it made no sense to take a proper “rest day”, but I was also not keen on lowering the standard. I still needed an “Ultra” on this day, after all. Dachstein was the perfect candidate because on one hand, the physical aspect should be “easy” but on the other hand, the tricky technical aspects meant we did need a day of perfect weather. Therefore the plan was to climb Dachstein as a “rest day” but the 6+ hours of driving afterwards towards Wildspitze would surely take a toll on me, but that’s something to worry about later. Adam found a sneaky camping area about halfway between Grossglockner and Dachstein so we went there to settle. The next morning we got up at around 5 am and drove the remaining 1.5 hours to the tramway station.

This is an extremely complicated objective from the logistics perspective, and of course we came there not expecting that as nobody on peakbagger.com had mentioned any issue in obtaining the tramway tickets. We showed up about an hour before the first scheduled ride and there were already almost 100 climbers and tourists lining up for the tickets. Most, if not all of them had made reservations online which was something we weren’t aware of. Adam raised the concern but I thought we would be fine. Unfortunately by 8 am the staff told us that the entire day was booked off so our only option was to hike up the entire mountain, or to leave. We had no “plan B” really, so struggled to find an alternative while sitting in the picnic area, but about 20 minutes later the receptionist came out and issued us the round trip tickets, presumedly because some of the tourists didn’t show up. This was downright unexpected and definitely saved the day. The main problem was this being on a Saturday. We did take a look at the booking site and it seemed like the weekdays weren’t nearly as full, but this is definitely something to take note of for the future parties. The gondola ride costed 57 EUR per person for the round trip so there’s more than 20% increase since Deividas’ trip a few years ago. There’s also a toll on the road access for 20 EUR but those were subsidized if one’s taking the tramway to the top. The entire staging area was literally a zoo with hundreds, if not thousands of people doing all kinds of things.

We were finally able to start the trip as we did get our spots to ride to the top (after queueing for at least 30 minutes), and then we immediately walked away from the crowds. There’s about 70 m elevation loss down onto the glacier and the glacier was mostly “dry”. There were even maintained cross-country ski runs so we felt no need to be roped up. The condition was terrible on the other hand. Due to the heat wave and the late start of the day the glacier had literally turned into a swamp, and I constantly post-holed ankle deep into slush even by following the existing footprints. Most parties including Adam opted to don crampons but I kept mine in the backpack until leaving the ski run. The glacier above the ski run was still covered in snow so we roped up there, and our route choice was the north face ferrata following the parties ahead. I knew that Rob Woodall etc. had taken the east ridge (longer) ferrata but those guys did that to minimize glacier travel. We had two people here and a bunch of other teams, that minimizing glacier travel wasn’t something we needed to consider. The more elevation we could dispatch on snow, the easier the climb would be. The glacier was fairly easy but we did have to cross several crevasses including one with some questionable snow bridges. The upper reach of the glacier was fairly steep but no worse than 35-40 degrees.

We did a long break in the moat doing the transition. I had opted to bring the approach shoes for the rock scramble/climb so the boots were ditched in the moat, along with the ice axe and crampons. Adam had brought his ferrata kits. I did not, but did bring a personal leash for some semi-safety. I did end up leashing myself to the ferrata cable for a few occasions lower down, but I would have done it without. The climbing was definitely no worse than “Grade B” but there were some vertical sections with lethal exposure. The route was fairly short and we timed our turn to be exactly in between the two waves, so had the entire route free of crowds. The summit area was busy because there were other parties showing up via the other routes, and the views were significantly obscured by the smog/smoke with the stagnant air.

Due to the concern of crowding issues we immediately started the descent after taking a few obligatory victory shots. We made our way back down to the moat moments before the next wave of parties showed up, so had the entire down-climb to ourselves as well. We then took a long break in the moat for food and water and the gear transition. The glacier had literally turned into mush by noon so extra care was needed, but it wasn’t too bad. In no time we were back to the ski runs and de-roped. The plod back to the gondola station was uneventful but the uppermost 70 m regain was quite painful. We showed up there about an hour and half earlier than the “reserved time” but the staff didn’t say anything. We were able to take the not-so-busy download tram at around 1 pm and were off the mountain shortly after. I did need to go back into the ticketing area so they could “pay” the 20 EUR toll fee for us, and that costed at least half an hour delay due to the queue. This place was such a gong show on weekends that I would strongly recommend future parties avoiding Dachstein on weekends, and do make sure you make the online reservations. I did push 6 hours west afterwards through Salzburg and Germany, all the way to the base of Wildspitze to settle for the night.