Visiting Austria

Due to recent events I found it necessary to put up some general information about jumping in Austria.

If you’re visiting Austria, CONTACT THE LOCALS!!!
Here some ways to do so:

Austrian objects
Austria has quite a few nice terminal cliffs, some tracking, some wingsuit only. Contrary to Switzerland and Norway there are no signs on the hiking trails with small wingsuits painted on to safely guide you to the exit. There are no hiking trails at all to the exits for pretty much every object here!!! Although Austria has a quite high density of jumpers, and some of the objects that are jumped quite often like Dragonwall (Drachenwand), there are no visible trails leading to the exit, and it is nearly impossible to find if you do not have someone to show you the way.
The jumpers that opened that stuff most likely spent multiple days on that object to find an exit, although it seems obvious from the below. So do not think that you can hike up there and check it out yourself! Most of the jumps here do not have many exit possibilities, on Dragonwall the exit we jump is pretty much the only spot where it is jumpable with a slider up packjob.
The mountains we got here are not that big in terms of height above sea level, but do not let this fact fool you into a false sense of security, the hikes are long, steep and exhausting, and you will find yourself in a serious alpine environment up there.
We do not have any “easy” jumps here, a trackingsuit is mandatory, you have to be a good tracker to jump safe here, and unlike Lauterbrunnen, landingareas are small, far away, with little to no alternatives, and on some of the jumps you will have a treelanding if you pull low.

Important telephone numbers
Country prefix: +43

  • Mountain rescue:  140
  • Euro-emergency phone: 112
  • Emergency medical service: 144
  • Police: 133

Stuff you should know
Learn the german/Austrian name of the location (eg. Drachenwand for Dragonwall) and the name of the closest town.
If you call one of the emergency numbers above without a region prefix, your call maybe ends up in some emergency dispatch central somewhere in this country, and the operator will be thankful if you can give him the name of your location and the next city to contact local rescue organizations.
There is also a high chance that the emergency operator speaks only little to no English, and hes maybe having a hard time associating the English nickname of a site with the name of an Austrian mountain.

Once again, CONTACT THE LOCALS!!!
Not only to show you the exit, maybe to also make you aware of some other dangers surrounding that object or any agreements we got with residents, and we can deal with emergency services if something goes wrong. Besides that, Austrian jumpers are actually nice guys, we not only know how to get to the exits, but also where to get the beer afterwards, where its good to eat, and maybe help you organize a place to stay overnight.

All the sitenaming here is on purpose!
At the moment it seems to be more important to make this page discoverable via google to offer information to jumpers planning to come here than protecting a sitename that is no secret anymore anyways.

Some extra info about Dragonwall (Drachenwand)
Do not underestimate this jump nor the hike! You will not find the exit on your own!
This is not an easy jump! If you’re not a good tracker, don’t jump it. If you cannot fly your wingsuit, don’t jump it. The hike is exhausting, the wall is not overhung but has a big positive ledge sticking out 300m below, the landing is far out, if you cannot track you’re really close to the wall on opening, and if you pull low you’ll end up in trees. And this is pretty much the easiest terminal jump in Austria, so it gets just worse.

Incidents at Dragonwall
(excerpt)

  • Jumper died after he slipped and fell while searching for an exit on the wrong part of the mountain.
  • Jumper had to be rescued by helicopter with minor injuries, he couldn’t find the exit but jumped anyways at a very positive part of the wall.
  • Jumper had a cliffstrike after inefficient track and broke his legs and had to be flown out by helicopter.
  • Jumper broke his upper arm on treelanding after lowpull and inefficient flight with wingsuit.

1 Response to Visiting Austria

  1. brendan mchugh says:

    Thank you for going to the trouble of providing this information. It is very practical. It shows a very mature understanding of our sport. Perhaps I will get the chance to jump in Austria at some point, maybe later this season or sometime next year. I presently live in Norway, and will probably be in Italy again this year. I made a jump earlier this month off Cima Grande in the Dolomites and would like to return to that area. I will check in with you again for advice.
    Many thanks for this site, Regards, B.

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