Climbing the Rigi Hochflue

We've climbed the Rigi Hochflue before and really enjoyed it, so we decided for a repeat.

We meet M, a colleague of Greg's, at the gondola and spare ourselves some unneccesary vertical. From the top of the gondola we follow the trail along the top (beautiful weather, beautiful views) to the alp at Egg and then follow the smaller trail/cowpath into the woods. Finding the start of the ladders takes longer this time (we end up too low), but we do get the eventually and start our way up, up to the beginnings of the routes (Note to ourselves: the first time we did this we wore helmets for this part... we didn't think of it this time, but we definitely should have).

We opt to climb Edelwis again and enjoy the slabby, but mostly relatively non-stressy climbing. We haven't climbed as a team of three since Mt Whitney (and that was different since we were with a guide), and we do swap the lead at each stand, which adds a bit of complexity, but we enjoy orselves and make decent time (all things considered). At the end of the route we have a snack and then pack the gear away and continue on to the Hochflue itself. It's madness up here! Loads of people enjoying the great weather and views. We find a good place to sit a ways further back along the ridge and have a food and view break before starting the descent.

We've been on the Hochflue a few times and always descended via the ladder towards Gätterlipass, but today we opt to head down the other side, towards the lake. This is clearly more popular and barely deserves to be blue-white, but it takes us efficiently down, down to the west ridge. Here we follow the path down, down to Gersau. We say bye to M and then catch a bus to Vitznau, where we get the boat to Luzern (the bus is late, but the bus driver has called ahead and the boat waits for us... yay!) . Given the Sunday crowds, we buy first class tickets for the boat and the train from Luzern... definitely a good decision. Nice boat ride along the lake and then the standard train trip back home.

Fun day!

Track:

Stats: ~6:30, 9km (hiking), ~400m up (hiking), ~1359m down (hiking)

Climbing at the Grosser Mythen

Decent weather forecast for the weekend, so we book a hotel room in Brunnen and plan two days of fun down there. The plan for today is to do some climbing on the Gross Mythen. We know that we'll start with the Adlerspitzli, but the rest we'll play by ear.

Train to Schwyz and then up, up, towards Holzegg. Unfortunately clouds start to colelct on the Gross Mythen as we're approaching, but we'll see how that goes. We leave the path/road at the hairpin and head through the woods. There's an easy to follow use trail until we get to the old snow (avalanche remains), where we turn right and head directly uphill to the foot of the cliff. This is steep but manageable. At the cliff we find the path again and follow it around the corner and to the foot of the route. We put on the gear, say goodbye to the two who've arrived behind us, and start our way up the route. This is easy climbing on less-than-ideal rock for the first couple pitches, but the rock gets better towards the top. At the top we are in a cloud, so we can't really enjoy the views, but we have a nice food break anyway. During the break we get passed by a local who's soloing the route; he continues on past us (goal: the Gelbe Wand). We had talked about continuing along a route up the Geissstock, but given the cloud and the fact that route finding isn't trivial we opt to descend instead.

The foot descent takes us along the Ruchband, an excellent T4/T5 hike just under one a big cliff. Super fun walking with cables along most of the hairy bits and some great atmosphere thanks to the clouds. At the "chamber pot" we do another food break and then start to head down, down. Here we don't manage to stay on the trail, but the scree slope is easy enough to descend and we find our way to the hut at the Holzflueli without problems. Here we pick up the trail and continue onwards and downwards into Schwyz. There the bus to Brunnen, check into the hotel, shower and rest, dinner at the pizza place next door, and then bed.

Definitely would be worth heading back to the Gross Mythen on a day with less clouds!

Gear note: this is greg's first tour with his new Black Diamond Vision climbing helmet.

Track (does not include the climb or the first part of the Ruchband):

Stats: 7:30, ~10.5km hiking, ~800m up (hiking), ~950m down (hiking)

Frick to Wenslingen

We enjoyed having breakfast outside so much that we decided to do it again, but this time a bit closer to home.

Train to Frick and then up, up into the orchards. Our original plan is to do breakfast in the ruin, but there's a nicely situated picnic table with good views so we stop there instead. After a good breakfast we continue along the path to the ruins of Alt-Tierstein. A bit of playing around in the ruins and then up the rest of the way to the ridge and onwards. Along the easy path under the trees, past the outdoor chapel at Buschberg, onwards, a bit too much on the road, until the view opens up before us and we find a bench with a nice view. Here we do a food break (wearing our warm stuff... it's not particularly summery today) before continuing on through Anwil, down into the gorge, past the frog bridge, and then up the other side to Wenslingen. We do this last bit at a decent pace so that we can catch the bus.

Track:

Stats: 4:20, 16.1km, ~525m up, ~325m down

A long Jura ridge hike

The weather forecast wasn't great, so we opted for a long Jura hike. 

We got a quite early start and took breakfast with us with the idea that we'd have breakfast with a view from the Vogelberg. Starting from Reigoldswil things were ok, though cloudy and somewhat cool, and we even saw a bit of sun as we worked our way up. Our intent was to move reasonably quickly, but it's muddy enough that this doesn't really work out. The weather slowly gets crappier and by the time we hit the ridge above the Vogelberg restaurant it's actively raining. We stop under shelter at the restaurant and consider our options. No matter what we're going to need to head onto towards Passwang, so we set back out again. 

By the time we reach the Vogelberg itself the rain has stopped, but since it's really too windy to comfortably have breakfast we continue on to a spot a bit below the pass where we're out of the wind and can have breakfast. We'd brought along a thermos full of porridge and the jetboil so that we could do coffee and tea, so it was a nice breakfast. And, despite the suboptimal conditions, it really is nice to have breakfast outside! After breakfast the weather has improved a bit, so we continue on past Passwang, down, down to Ramiswil (and past the odd little chapel in the gorge), and then up, up to the next ridge at the Laupersdörfer Stierenberg. Great Jura views from up here (there's a curtain of clouds over the Alps today, so all eyes are on the Jura!).

The original plan is to follow the ridge for a bit and then head down into the next valley and up to the first Jura ridge near the Rüttelhorn, but after seeing the ridge we're on stretching temptingly out in front of us, we opt to just continue on this one. At Obere Tannmatt we stop for cafe and kuchen (how civilized!) and then continue on and on, past Probsteberg and the cool field stone wall we saw last January during the cave trilogy hike, past Malsenberg, and then along the trail diagonally down to Gänsbrunnen (we haven't taken this route down before... it's nice), where we have a bit of time to finish our last sandwiches before catching the train that starts us towards home.

This ended up being our longest hike. We did a few over 33km last year during the corona restrictions, but this one topped those.

Track

Stats: 9:44, 35.6km, ~1600m up, ~1400m down

Oberdorf to Grenchen along the ridge

Another Jura dayhike to celebrate a lovely day.

Start in Oberdorf and immediately begin the Andrea special: up, up, up on a nice (unmarked) path through the woods. We'd kind of expected to be alone, so we were surprised that there's another couple in front of us, one starting behind us, and we get passed by a trail runner on the way up. Up, up until we hit the ridge. Now following the ridge, at times directly on it, at times just below (soooo frustrating for Andrea! ;-) until we hit the Gitziflue. A food break here despite the fact that there's not really a great place for it, and then a bit further along the ridge until we hit the main hiking path (we've been here before long, long ago) and the real crowds. 

Up on this part of the ridge there's an amazing carpet of Bärlauch. Further along and up until we come out into the open at the Hasenmatt, were we stop for another quick snack and to enjoy the fantastic views of the Alp chain. Then onwards and onwards, above the impressive Wandflue (another food break here because the views are just toooo good), past the big crowd at the start of the path down towards Aengloch (instagram spot?), and then on to Untergrenchenberg (packed!). From here it's down, down, along a nice trail through the woods (we did this descent back in 2016 after a weekend of hiking), in the steadily increasing heat, to Grenchen. It feels like it takes forever to get through Grenchen to the train station, but then were there, with enough time for a cool drink before the train back to Basel arrives.

Lovely day of Jura hiking.

Track:

Stats: ~17km, 6:30, ~1000m up, ~1200m down

Scrambling the Arête du Raimeux

We decided to do the Arête du Raimeux this weekend (it's been a while since we last did this ridge) and opted for Saturday in the hopes that it would be less crowded. The plan is to scramble, but we bring a rope and a bit of gear just in case.

Train to Moutier and then walk to the base of the route (part of the walk with two other folks from the Basel SAC who were planning the Arête Special). There are at least three teams above us on the slabs, which certainly isn't as bad as it could have been. 

On with the helmets and harnesses (again, just in case), and then diagonally up the slab along the crack. At the end of the crack up along the ridge until we get to the top of the first set of slabs. Here we pass a group of climbers and continue to pick our way up, being super careful not to kick rocks down onto the climbers. For the first bit there's tons of loose gravel, so this takes some doing. We generally try to stay left (towards the edge) and just head up, up until reaching the top of the ridge. Here there's a lot less loose rock and the going is much easier. Fun, fun scrambling staying more or less on the ridge except for the two steep climbing bits, which we pass on the right. Great conditions, great views, sometimes some good exposure, almost always good rock. The two downclimbing bits require some care, but aren't bad (for both of them it looks like the right corner is the best way down). We're alone on the ridge aside from another couple a ways behind us who are also scrambling instead of climbing.

Food break towards the end of the scrambling bit (after a bit over an hour), then we come down onto an obvious path and pack away the helmets and harnesses. Now we follow the path the rest of the way up, up the ridge. The SAC hut is, surprisingly, open; so we stop and have a cool beverage before continuing onwards. Once in the open on the ridge we have excellent views of the Alps, which we enjoy as we continue to the "peak" and the tower. Another quick food break, a visit to the tower, and then onwards along the ridge until we get to the trail heading down towards Corcelles. We follow this down, through the gorge, until we hit town and get the train that starts us on our way home. (Stupid thing there: we were a couple minutes late to Moutier and got to see the train to Basel leave just as we got to the doors. That connection is always tight, but they've never left without us before).

Memos for the future: 

1. there are now some alternate climbing routes on the section with the really greasy 5b. May be worth heading back at some time and actually climbing here.
2. There is more ridge to the right of the path after we packed away the gear. It looked like harder climbing to get up there and we didn't see any obvious signs that it was frequently done... the topo in Plaisir Jura says that there's a 5b up onto that. Worth considering in the future.

Track:

Stats: 13.1km, 5:30, ~900m up, ~700m down