Bürs in Vorarlberg (Austria) offers excellent endurance routes in steep conglomerate overhangs. As the conglomerate rock offers rich possibilities of holds, it most likely will be the lack of endurance that kicks you out in these endless long routes. As everyone praised this area to the skies, it has been a long time on the list of climbing areas I wanted to visit. And together with Eva and Jan-Erik, we finally did so …
Bürs is located in the lowest part of the Brandner valley at the Vorarlberg in Western Austria. Leaving the highway in Bürs, drive towards the church/obvious huge cliff in the village. If you travel by train, then you can reach the crag within a 10-15 minute walk from the main station in Bludenz through Bürs to the crag.
The climbing area in Bürs offers multiple different sectors. The most outstanding and obvious is the ‚Bürser Platte‘. It is the eyecatcher at the beginning of the Bürser gorge: a nearly featureless, flat, super high slab. It is hard to believe that Beat Kammerlander found a way to climb this slab with his route “Prinzip Hoffnung”. Next to the ‚Bürser Platte‘ some sectors with easier routes around 7a are located. They are mostly in the sun which is nice on cold days. Please be aware, that you need some trad climbing gear for some of those routes…
A little bit further in the Bürser gorge, the sectors ‚Bürser Verschneidung, ‚Große Wand‘, ‚Großer Überhang‘ and ‚Rumpelkammer‘ are situated. In opposite to the other sectors, the rock here consists of conglomerate stone and a lot of pebbles. The conglomerate is of good quality and quite solid, but you may need s some time to get used to it. Personally, I like this kind of stone – the holds are quite ergonomic and quite good. The pebbles offer rich holds and so you easily can adopt your own beta. And that makes climbing in Bürs quite funny: as you do not have to focus on single sneaky bouldery moves, you can completely focus on climbing in these endless routes until you drop off completely pumped…
Some of the coolest routes that I climbed there, were ‚Schmarotzer‘ (7b+/c) and ‚Have fun‘ (8a+). But I enjoyed each route I climbed there, even the easier ones (may all routes there are quite good or I was lucky in my choice 🙂 ). The easier routes start around 6b but sometimes require a surprisingly solid climbing level. Another dream line I tried, was ‚Skyline‘ (8b) which is about 45m long through the endless main wall. Actually, I just invested about three tries and even made it to the upper part dropping off in a dyno with completely pumped forearms. Sadly, it rained on the following weekend and the upper part was completely wet and I had no possibility to try it again. But I want to try this awesome line again …
Despite climbing, the Bürser gorge offers rich possibilities for hiking through the scenic landscape up to the village of Bürserberg. Bürs is definitely worth a visit, and I am sure I will return next year …
