Climbing the Piz Buin

This weekend, Andrea went with the SAC to climb the Piz Buin.
(greg had already left for CA.)

After travelling for a long long time, we started walking in Guarda, in a big group of 13, up the pretty Val Tuoi and reached shortly after a nice lunch break the Chamonna Tuoi.

While some decided to stay at the hut and rest, others went up to the lake underneath the Fuorcla Vermunt for a swim or just a walk. Dark clouds came up and we hurried back down to hut, skipping and dancing along the way. After a somewhat disappointing dinner and some practicing of knots and rope-handling, bed-time came soon.

After breakfast at 5am, we were underway shortly after 5h30, first along the path up around the Cronsel to Plan Rai, then further around the corner over a few snow fields to the notch south-east of the Fuorcla dal Cunfin. We were met by fog and low clouds, roped up and went the short bit over the Ochsentaler Gletscher to the Buinlücke in between Piz Buin Grond and Piz Buin Pitschen. Off with the ropes again and up over rocks to the small saddle on the ridge. Before and after our (big) group lots and lots of other groups came up from a hut on the Austrian side of the mountain, long long ant-trails on the glacier...it's going to be busy up there....

 ....after some waiting but then only a bit of scrambling, the terrain on the ridge was easy enough for walking again, up up up to the peak. A break on the peak, enjoying the views and being both amused and shocked by the masses and masses of people already there and coming up behind us.

Then back down the ridge, roped up over the glacier, un-roped sliding down some snow-fields, around the corner, taking the direct route down some steep gras flank from the Cronsel to the river, we were back at the hut before 2pm. After some cake and a cool drink, we packed up and made our way back down the valley to catch the first bus for a long and hot and crowded ride home.

Clean climbing above Corcelles

The forecast called for a nice day but thunderstorms in the evening, and we weren't necessarily up for a big thing anyway, so we decided to go climbing in the Jura. While planning that, we happened to find a nice-sounding multi-pitch clean route outside of Corcelles in the keepwild books, so we opted for an adventurous climb (the first multi-pitch clean route we've done on our own).

From the train station in Corcelles we take a farm road up and out of town. At the first hairpin in the woods we follow the (not super often used) use trail into the woods and up, up to the cliffs. We find the bolted routes and the giant Sanduhr (not quite sure how to translate that) and start looking for the beginning of Lapiaz fantastiques. This, of course, isn't as straightforward as finding the beginning of a bolted route (and goodness knows that we aren't alwasy great at that!), but we eventually decide that we've found a likely starting point.

On with the gear and then G starts the first pitch. The first bit is kind of mossy, but after that it clears up and is pretty easy to protect up to the top of the flake. There's a bit of a drop on the other side to a saddle that's manageable after traversing the top of the flake and halfway climbing over/through a crack. Good tree here for a belay, so G stops and A comes up. Protection on the pitch was easy to find: mostly slings around trees with one sling around a rock spike. The situation looks good for us to A continues up towards the slab, trying to stay out of the couloir to the right (per topo). There's a short bit of tricky transition to slab, but then she heads to the edge and things settle down until she comes to a big tree that's another good belay. Protection on the pitch was reasonably easy: slings around trees, one sling through a sanduhr, and a friend. At this point it's looking like we're not really on the route: we're on the leftmost pillar and according to the topo there should be a pillar to our left. Ah well, we'll see what happens with the next pitch. G leads the short distance up to the top of the pillar, find that it's an easy meter down to the saddle, and opts to do a belay on a rock spike so that we can talk about what comes next. Protection on the pitch was easy with slings around trees. A comes up, crosses the saddle and moves around the corner onto the face of the next pillar, where there's a good tree for a belay. Rather than A continuing to climb, G comes over and leads the next pitch up. More pretty easy climbing with protection on trees and a couple of friends up to the saddle, where he does a belay on a tree and brings A up.
At the saddle we shorten the rope to have about 5m between us, change into our approach shoes, and take a food break. From here on its lower-grade climbing and scrambling, so we simulclimb with ~5m between us. The first bit is somewhat steep but has some nice trees for slings (including one with a colony of ants underneath it that got very unhappy and active as G stepped on the colony to rig a sling... we both ended up brushing off ants and dealing with ant bites for the next 5 minutes). After that it was less steep along the ridge, setting the occasional sling or friend to protect things, but mainly using rock spikes and making sure that we're either on different sides of the ridge or there's a good-sized tree between us; fun stuff. At the end of the ridge we congratulate ourselves, pack up all the gear, and start the hike out.

There's a use trail that takes us up, up, to an old forest road, which we follow up for a bit and then head cross-country up to the road on the broad, flat ridge of the Raimeux. Along the road, joining where we came up on our hike earlier this year, to the Raimeux de Grandval (closed! no cool drinks for us!) and then further along the ridge (G was last up here doing a trail run), past the SAC hut (closed! no cool drinks for us!), down, down, past the Auberge de Raimeux (closed! no cool drinks for us!). Since the next cool drink chances are at the station, we check the train times and realize that we've got 40 minutes to make it down. The signs say an hour. No worries, we start moving a bit more quickly. The nice hike down along the switchbacks through the woods is great for making up time and we're at the station with 7-8 minutes to spare. Plenty of time to get cool drinks before catching the train. :-)
<40 do="" down="" hour="" minutes="" nbsp="" p="" the="" to="">
<40 do="" down="" hour="" minutes="" nbsp="" p="" the="" to="">This was great! We likely weren't on the planned route for parts (possibly large parts) of it, but what we did was still a lot of fun and no problem to find protection on. We agree that doing more of this kind of thing would be good. :-)

Track (missing most of the climbing bit):

A long weekend at the Rotondo hut

We had originally planned to do a three day weekend with the SAC, but that got cancelled due to a dodgy weather forecast. Fortunately we had a backup plan ready.

Day 1:
Hike up from Realp to the Rotondohütte. The first bit of the road is the same last time (though we saw two European adders/vipers this time!) but then we head off onto a trail that takes us to the Rottälligrat. Here we follow what is obviously the old route once we get past Stelliboden (the new route isn't on the map yet), but this still takes us up nicely into the fun alpine landscape.

We rejoin the new (red-white) trail at the crossing of the trail towards Furkapass (there's a bunch of new/improved trail work up here, likely due to the growing popularity of the 4 Quellenweg). Up, up to the saddle and then we stay on the blue-white path the last bit to p2748. We're both glad to have the climbing done with - it's hot and the packs are heavy, so our legs are tired! Along the lovely block ridge with good views (though the Witenwasserenstock is in clouds), past the sign for "Mount Sunrise", and then down to the hut.

We get settled in, enjoy some cool beverages and a piece of cake, rest for a bit, and then have a good dinner and head off the bed. The hut's a bit more than half full, everyone else seems to be hikers who are doing the 4 Quellenweg.


Stats:  10.4km, 1200m up, 220m down.

Day 2:
We saw the Leckihörner when we stayed at the Rotondohütte last year to climb the Witenwasserenstock. The traverse of the two peaks is also described in Dani's book and it looked really cool. That's the plan for today.
We start with decent conditions (though we still can't see the Witenwasserenstock) and follow the blue-white path down to the glacier. We rope up and start towards the Witenwasserenpass. When we get close to the long snowfield that heads up to the ridge it looks less steep than it did from the hut. Since snow conditions are good and the snow goes all the way up, we opt to head up that way. Once at the ridge we take off the crampons, get out the climbing gear and start our way along the ridge.

We're in clouds and the weather is in general pretty crappy, so we don't have any views at all and the landmarks on the ridge aren't exactly easy to find/follow. At some point it actually rains for a few minutes, so we put on our hardshells and wait that out. In the approach to the Cli Leckihorn there's a spot with some 3c climbing and then an abseil we were planning on doing, but we end up taking the less technically challenging but more loose and exposed route around that since we think we're at the "reddish tower" we're not supposed to climb (the winner quote from G at the beginning of that: "there's no way going up this bit is second grade climbing, this must be where we're supposed to go around"). Eventually we end up on what we think is the peak of the Chli Leckihorn and we start to follow the ridge down to where we're expecting to hit a snow field we need to cross. At some point A catches a glimpse through the cloud of a snow field off to our left. To our left? There's not supposed to be a snowfield to our left! We figure out that we're heading down the N ridge instead of the W ridge, so we turn around to head back up. Along the way we get enough of a clearing in the clouds to see the snowfield we're supposed to be crossing and the saddle at the beginning of the ridge to the Gross Leckihorn that we're supposed to be crossing to. Yeah! We break out the ice axes, decide against the crampons since the snow is good, and cross to the saddle.

A pitch of climbing up around a thin tower, a pitch of mostly scrambling, and then we shorten up the rope and continue along the really nice, mostly narrow and exposed, ridge to the peak.

There's a bit of down climbing to the cross, where a family that's hiked up from the hut is sitting and gawking (must be funny to see two people emerge from the fog above you when you feel like you're alone at the top of a mountain). Total time including breaks to the cross is 5:20 (Dani says 4-5, so we're pretty happy with this).We pack the gear away, chat with the family for bit (three generations!), have some food, enjoy the occasional bit of view, and then start down. At the saddle (that G thinks is the Leckipass) we opt to head down the snowfield, which is a bit steeper than G would like, but definitely manageable. Down, down we go the rest of the way to the hut. Total trip time is just under 7 hours. Cool beverages, some resting, a dinner that's really not up to the expected standard, even for a full hut, and then off to bed. Thanks to all the fog, the bit of rain, and the difficult route finding (on a ridge!), it was not an easy day mentally, but we certainly enjoyed ourselves and are a bit proud of ourselves for having pulled it off.
Stats: 6km, 600m up, 600m down

Day 3:
Our original plan was a long traverse of the Muttenhörner, but after reading about an interesting-sounding route to the Gotthardpass in a book at the hut we opt for that instead. The day starts with lovely blue skies and the first view of the Witenwasserenstock that we've had this entire trip.

We follow the blue-white path down to the lake at the foot of the glacier and then up, up the moraine to the Hüenerstock. A lot of work has been put into this trail and it's probably only still blue-white because they haven't gotten around to painting over the markings. By the time we get to the peak clouds have started to come in, so we have nice views back to the North, but it's spotty to the South. Now along the ridge on a really nice laid and (excessively) well marked red-white trail that takes us easily along the ridge with clouds blowing over from the South, past the Hüenersattel, and along the old military way over the Ronggergrat to the Passo di Cavanna.

Here we take a quick food break out of the wind and then head down the other side of the pass, down, down, down until we hit the blue-white trail towards the Passo di Lucendro and the Gotthard. More nice hiking under the face of the Pizzo Lucendro, into the cloud, and then steeply up to the Cresta del Poncinetto. They're in the process of putting a bunch of chains in here to make the step easy (and, probably, to get this over to red-white too). Really high winds on the ridge and pass, but we manage to get out of the wind to have another food break by the old buildings near the pass. Given the low clouds, we opt not to take the interesting (and unmarked) route down to the pass, but stick to the normal hiking path. This takes us down, down, past the Lago di Lucendro, into ever more threatening looking clouds. About half an hour from the pass it starts to rain. Fortunately it only rains hard for a few minutes of that and we make it to the buildings at the pass before the sky really cracks open. We've got some time, so we grab some food before getting on the bus and starting the long trip back home.

Stats: 14.7km, 780m up, 1270m down

A long weekend at the Albigna hut

We've planned at least one other trip to the Albigna hut and tried to do a climbing course there a couple of times, but something has always happened in the past, so this was our first trip there.

Things we did, some of these deserve their own posts; they are coming....

Thursday:

the long trip down, the short hike up the hut, climbing Piccolo on the Torre dal Päl, checking in, climbing Wassersymphonie on the slabs below the hut (a bit of fun with skipping stands), eating outside, fires, crazy rain

Friday: 

dodgy weather day: hiking up to the Pass da Casnil Sud and then playing a bit on the ridge before heading back to the hut for lunch and a quiet, rainy afternoon.

Saturday: 

early start to climb the Punta da l'Albigna along Via Meuly, the walk to the other routes, and then the last 6 pitches of Via Steiger to the North peak. From there a short stretch along the ridge to the South peak, two abseils, and then the hike back to the hut.

Sunday: 

early start to climb Mild West to the Piz dal Päl. Almost starting in the wrong route before Martin yelled at us from the hut, then on to the correct route. Pretty quick ascent to the top before hiking back to the hut and then heading back down to the gondola

We could easily spend a week at this hut and continue to have big fun on the granite.