Four days in Tessin: Cap. Cadlimo to Gotthard pass

Breakfast at 7:00 (and a good one) and underway by around 7:45.

It’s lovely and blue sky again; still a bit cool.

We start along the blue-white path behind the hut towards the Passo Bornengo. Nice going along the rocks, around some hard frozen snow fields, past a mostly frozen lake, and then up, up, past another lake, up, over snow, up up to the ridge. Fantastic views! This is a really nice block ridge with a bit of exposure, a bit of balance, and a bit of scrambling. Oh, and great views! The spicy bits all have chains and/or steps, which is nice given that we are mostly downclimbing. The pass comes sooner than it needs to and we rejoin the red-white hiking path and start down, down into the nice valley towards the Maighelshütte. Over some snow fields, along the flat bottom, past a forest of cairns, and then lightly off to the left and up to the Maighelspass. Here a food break while enjoying the views and then we start the long descent down towards the Vermigelhütte.

Down, down, down until we hit the road, up a bit to the hut, quick decision that we want to stick with our original plan, quick water bottle filling, and then up, up, up through the gentle, round, green valley towards the Sellapass. Steadily up, enjoying the breeze and the views and the walking; nice food break, and then up some more. Where it starts to get steeper we run into a young woman who asks if we are going through the pass and, once we confirm that we are, asks if she can come with us, she had turned back at a snow field before but would rather go through the pass than back down through the valley. of course we agree, so we continue up as a group of three. There are some steep snow fields along the way, but the snow is good for making steps and with a bit of creativity and care we make our way through the tricky bits and then further up to the pass. More great views, a bit along the ridge to the buildings, a photo, water, and view break, and then we start our way down.

Down, down, down, along an easy path with a few snow fields, down, down, saying goodbye to the long views, down down to the lake above the dam. From here it’s easy, mostly along the road, to get to the Gotthard pass. We have a bit of time, so we enjoy a bratwurst in the sun (and wind!) before getting on the bus down to Airolo.

Another really nice day!

Track:

Stats: 7:50, 21.0km, 1170m up, 1620m down

Four days in Tessin: Gorda to Cap. Cadlimo

Breakfast at 7:00, not particularly satisfying (matching expectations, but one can always hope), and we are underway at 7:45. The weather is perfect, the clouds from the days before have all blown away (we can actually see the Rheinwaldhorn) and there’s a nice breeze to keep things cool. We start out going up, up, up along a nice path towards the Capanna Nido d’Aquila. Once we hit the broad ridge we turn off to the left and climb gently through a really, really nice landscape. There are beautiful places one could bivvy, a couple nice looking lakes, some ponds, nice views, etc. Along the ridge for a bit before turning off to the right and starting to head down towards Acquacalda. 

Down down along a nice path, crossing some streams (this is something of a theme for the day), one wet foot crossing (g has his Merrills with him, A gets wet shoes), along we go. Food break along the way, meeting another path at Brönich; now we start to see some other people. Onward and onward until hitting the larger trail at Lareccio. This one is way more popular, particularly with bikers coming the other direction (probably they have taken the gondola up from Airolo and are then riding down?). Anyway, now we start to head up, up again into another really pretty valley. Up up, enjoying the views and the breeze, another food break on a big flat rock, up, up to the Passo del Sole. New views!

Now it’s down from the path, turning off towards the Passo dell’Uomo, and then along a new valley, with new views for a bit. We turn off this busy trail (heading towards the Passo del Lucomagno) and contour around towards the Val Cadlimo. A food break and some water pumping along the way and then we head into the valley. This valley is surpassingly lovely, which is good since we walk the whole length of it. ;-) Lots of nice things too see as we go up, up . One of the more unusual of these is a herd of yaks(!) being driven by a shepherd, 6 dogs, and his family. That was weird. At the end we turn right and head up, up, taking in more amazing views, to the Capanna Cadlimo. We have time to get checked in and have a cool beverage before dinner, yeah!

The hut is pretty full (at least given the Corona restrictions), and many of the visitors aren’t the usual hut visitors, but things are well organized and everything works. We have a good meal, play a game, then head off to bed to process all of the many memories and mental pictures from what was a quite long, and really nice, day.

Track:

Stats: 9:40, 27.7km, 1730m up, 970m down

Four days in Tessin: Anzonico to Gorda

Breakfast at 7:30, and a surprisingly good one, and we are underway by 8:30.  We head up, up out of town and through the woods to Monte Angone. There’s a village fest here today, but we’re too early for it, so we continue up, up, through the woods some more, through Frageira, up up. A food break for strength and then we finish the last bit of climbing to hit the ridge at Passo Crastumo. Hoo boy is it windy up here! Nice to keep things cool. The views probably would be pretty good in both directions, but off to the East there is still a solid layer of clouds at around 2500m. 

Along the ridge we go, ascending up to Motto Crostel and then further, past Mottarone, until we head down to the Bassa di Nara. We find a wind sheltered place for a food break and plan our next step. Rather than doing the scrambly ridge to the Poncione di Nara and continuing to the Pizzo Molare (definitely attractive looking ridge fun) we take the "let’s save our legs a bit for tomorrow" approach. Up to the Pizzo di Nara and then along the ridge until we re-join the red-white hiking path. Down a bit more, contouring around, gently up and down, sometimes in the forest, sometimes the open, until we hit the Capanna Gorda, our destination for the day. 

Cool drinks and a cheese and salami plate in the sun, check in, a short nap, a bit more enjoying views, some games, a really good meal, and then we head off to bed. 

We kept the day intentionally a bit light(er) since Monday’s a big one, but it was still really nice.

Track:

Stats: 6:55, 16.7km, 1515m up, 831m down

Four days in Tessin: Poleggio to Anzonico

We take the 6 am train from Basel and after a couple of trains and a bus are ready to start hiking from Poleggio at  9:30. The first part of the day was part of G’s very long run last year, so some of the nice up, up, up, through the woods is familiar to him. It’s pretty warm and humid, but fortunately we are under trees as we head up up and along the Via Alta. The plan is to take a trail up towards the ridge from Bodengo, but it turns out not to be trivial to find this one and we don’t want to spend our time fighting uphill through the woods, so we continue along the via Alta until we hit the trail up just past Bidre. 

A food break and then more up, up, up to the ridge. This bit is really nicely graded and G has to watch himself to avoid going faster than he should. Through the lovely few houses at Tenciareu (they even have a gondola up!). Once on the ridge (still in trees so no views) we do another food break and then continue onto the other side, past the Capanna Plan d’Alpe, then up and back to the ridge. Once there we follow the ridge along and up, up to the Matro. This has a horrible structure on it but otherwise nice views (too bad about the clouds to the East). 

It’s running late-ish, so we opt to head down from here. There’s and unmarked use trail with some cairns (and the occasional faded old red/white marking) that leads us efficiently down to Puscett. Here we pick up a marked trail/road which we follow, mostly flat, along the slope until hitting Suaggia, where we pick up another unmarked trail which leads us down, down, down to Anzonico.

We find the hotel, check in, have showers and a rest, enjoy a good pizza, have a walk through town, and then go to bed.

This was a long day, but it felt longer than it was. There’s loads more to come, so those legs better wake up! ;-)

Track:

Stats: 8:04, 22.4km, 2050m up, 1390m down

Grassenbiwak and Grassen

 The plan for the weekend was to go to the Grassenbiwak on Saturday and then climb the Klein Titlis south face to get to the Titlis (there's a description of this in one of Dani Silbernagel's books). We started this last year, but Greg wasn't feeling great, so we turned around during the hike up to the Grassenbiwak.

Saturday

We take the bus to Herrenrüti, follow the trail up the valley a bit and then turn off and start heading up, up. It's a lovely blue-sky day and not overly warm... good hiking. Up, up we go, at first through the woods, but then more open, switching to the blue-white path at the place we turned around last time, and then up, up some more with great views under the towering east wall of the Titlis. We're definitely noticing that this is the first trip of the season with heavy packs. We do a food break at around 1900m and then follow the path across onto the glacier moraine. Up, up some more along the moraine and then we hit the first snow. The rest of the way to the ridge is a mix of kicking steps in steep snow, scrambling, and normal blue-white hiking. It's not always trivial to find the trail (some markings probably under snow, no visible trail because of the snow) and the snow->rock transitions are occasionally tricky, but we make steady progress. The last bit to the ridge even has some cables in it (that makes the route finding easy!). Once on the ridge the route finding gets easy (<smile>) and we continue on to the biwak. There are clear, and relatively fresh looking, tracks coming down from the Grassen so we are happy to discover that we are, at least at the moment, alone.

The biwak is super cozy and well equipped, so we get the stove going, boil some water, and have coffee/tea and enjoy the views along with our last sandwiches. It's a nice, quiet late afternoon. As it gets later some weather starts to come in and by the time we do dinner there's thunder and lightning on the other side of the Titlis and it's almost raining. We don't get a sunset, but there are at least some nice cloudscapes. During the night it rains pretty heavily and we get some more thunder and lightning; it's fun to lay warm and cozy in the hut and hear all that going on outside. :-)

Track from Saturday:

Stats: 5:29, 8.9km, ~1600m up

Sunday

We're in a cloud when we wake up. It's still mostly there after breakfast, so we do a post-breakfast nap to give the sun some time to do its job. By the time we start packing up at 8:30 it's cleared up some, though the Titlis itself is still mostly covered. We've decided that doing the original route isn't a great idea since the route-finding is supposed to be tricky and being in a cloud would just be too much (plus the approach yesterday was a bit more adventurous than anticipated and it's still early season in our heads), so when we set out it's towards the Grassen (the destination for our first self-organized Hochtour eight years ago). We head down the ridge from the hut to the glacier, rope up, and the follow the tracks up, up towards the Grassen. 

The ascent track turns off and seems to head more directly towards the Stössensattel, and the descent track is a direttissima, so Andrea gets to do some trail stamping as we zigzag up, up towards the peak. The snow is a bit too soft, but otherwise conditions are good and we make our way without problems to the ridge and follow the well-work track the rest of the way to the peak. Unsurprisingly, there are people up here. :-) After a food break and some view enjoyment on the peak (the Titlis is still largely in clouds), we start back along the ridge to follow the normal route back to the Sustlihütte. Easy along the ridge, through the pass, down the steep bit through the rocks (there's still snow here, but apparently not as much as last time), then down, down until we get to the hut.

At the hut we stop for some tea and cake and enjoy the views and the spectacle of the crowds doing the Kanzelgrat before starting our way down the Leiterliweg to the road and the bus stop. We've still got some time, so we hang out by the river, enjoy our last sandwiches, and then get on the bus to start the long trip back to Basel.

This wasn't what we had planned, but it was a definitely a very nice plan B.

Track from Sunday:

Stats: ~4:00, 6.7km, 420m up, ~1150m down

The Niesengrat

The forecast calls for a decent morning and then gathering clouds and rain in the early afternoon, so we decide to revisit the Niesengrat. We take an early train from Basel, get the first funicular up from Mülenen, and are underway under blue skies at 8:30.

The hike is just as enjoyable as last time and the weather is nice for a while before starting to cloud over. We stop for a food break on the Drunegalm and confirm on the weather radar that there is rain coming. Onwards to the Steinschlaghore, where we have a decision to make. We can see the rain coming and on the radar it looks like it'll arrive in <30 minutes, so we opt to not continue to the Mäggesserhore (a stretch goal for the day) and just head down to Frutigen. 

The rain starts a few minutes after we leave the ridge, so we do the long down, down, down in a light sprinkle. It's not too bad and it keeps the increasing temperature from being oppressive, so we aren't complaining.

Maybe next time we can actually make it to the Mäggesserhore, but this is still a really nice tour...

Track:

Stats: 5:51, 14km, ~700m up, ~2300m down