Grauspitz, summit of Liechtenstein

Route to the highest summit in Liechtenstein, from the Swiss side or "normal" route.

Surprisingly, the highest peak in Liechtenstein does not have a path leading to its summit. We had read some posts talking about an exposed ridge, an arduous scree climb, and we were prepared for the worst. But in fact, even if there is no path and you just need to follow your logic to get to the summit, it is not a hard climb if one has experience getting "off trail".

From the Älplibahn station, we follow the wide trails until Ijes farm. From the first saddle (col), there are two options: it is either possible to keep on wide tracks but descending a little extra, or follow a smaller trail (at some parts not very visible, but always marked) that leads to the normal route to Falknis and to a small lake. We took the later on the way in, and the wide path for the return so the track does boths.

From Ijes farm, we followed a fence to a valley, and from there we used the grassy ridge until another saddle, from where we can finally see Grauspitz and the rest of the route. We descend some meters to the scree-filled plateau, and ascend the scree slope to the saddle between both Grauspitz summits. This scree slope is easy to ascend, and certainly not as steep as we were expecting after reading some posts on the internet. And the final ridge is only exposed at two short sections where you have to use the hands, but the rest is mostly walking. You first reach a false summit, and from there you descend a few meters and reascend to the true highest point with a big cairn and a signature book.



There are two options to descend. One is to undo your steps on the ridge, as we did. But we also saw a guy just descending the scree slopes under the "false summit" all the way to the plateau. Since we wanted to lose as little elevation as possible in order to traverse to Hinter Grauspitz, we retraced our steps on the ridge.
From the saddle between both Grauspitz, we followed the grass slopes directly (see picture), as we judged the direct and steep ridge to be too difficult and exposed with mediocre rock quality. This traverse is exposed, and one should only engage in it if the grass is completely dry and with good weather conditions and visibility in order to assess your next movements and direction. Otherwise, it is possible to first descend to the plateau, and reascend to the Hinter Grauspitz following a more gentle scree/grass ramp, joining our track a few meters below. We have not tried this option to confirm, but on sight it looks possible and easier than what we did, at the cost of some extra meters of reascent.



From the summit of Hinter Grauspitz, we follow the south ridge directly in order to rejoin the grass ridge descending to Ijes farm, back to the wide trails.


TOTAL TIME: 8h with stops