Grimsel Climbing

We had planned to do an SAC tour this weekend, but P is recovering from an injury and had to cancel, so we booked a room at the Grimsel Hospiz and went for a weekend of climbing on lovely Grimsel granite.

We get off the bus at Räterrichsboden and follow the hiking path down into the valley but before turning off towards sector Foxie. There are other teams climbing, but no one in the route we have planned: King Albert. This is a lovely 10 pitches of fun without real difficulties. There is one traverse pitch which is a bit mentally challenging, but otherwise it’s all easy. There’s even a nice ledge towards the end where we can enjoy a food break.  

After that fun we head over to sector Azalee Beach with the idea that we could try some harder stuff. 

We did just the first pitch each of:

- Grimsel life (5a)

- Azalee Beach (5b)

- Swiss lady (5c)

It would have been nice to try a 6a, but the two possibilities had a smooth step in them which looked likely to be the source of the grade (instead of being a 6a slab). Still the last one was super fun and flowy and makes a good closing to the day.

The route along the lake is closed due to rock fall, last time it was snow,  but we decide to go that way anyway because the stretch along the road would just suck. We make it to the hotel without problems (of course), check in, have showers and a quick rest, and then go down for a fancy dinner (the place is fancier than we remember it being and they seem to be putting quite an effort into the food).

After dinner we head off to bed.

After a good breakfast and checking out we head back down towards Räterrichsbodensee. We fail to find the path to Summerloch which is suggested in the SAC Tourenportal but the one from Plaisir West is easy to find and follow. We are the first ones to get to the crag (yay!), though two other teams show up as we are getting ready (they both do other routes).

We start our way up Baal Integral: 5b, 5b, 5b, 5c+, 5c+ and it’s all fun. Definitely harder than the route from the day before, with longer distances between the bolts, but loads of fun. We opt to skip the last two pitches (also both 5c+) because getting to them requires a traverse across a wet slab which really doesn’t look inviting (the team behind us ends up doing this and says it wasn’t so bad, so maybe we should have continued), so go ahead and abseil down. This goes smoothly and we are relatively quickly back down on the ground. 

After a quick food break we decide that we want a bit more, so we opt to do the first couple of pitches of the route to the left of Baal Integral; we don’t have the name of the route, but according to the topo on the Tourenportal, they are 5b and 5a. Greg leads the first pitch and it feels harder than anything in Baal Integral (it’s definitely scarier). Right at the bottom there is some quite blank slab work, followed by a very narrow crack surrounded by a bunch of blank slab. The quite long distances between bolts ups the psychological game. Anyway, Greg finally finishes without incident (~35m, 4 bolts) and Andrea comes up. The next pitch, which Andrea leads, is a normal 5a slab pitch, but it’s distinguished by the fact that there are only 2 bolts on the 40m pitch, and those are both in the first half. The top is easy, but that’s still a long runout. The plan was to abseil from here, but neither is the stands we’ve been at were outfitted for abseiling, so we decide to change routes back to Baal Integral. This involves a long traverse over easy slab and another 30m pitch with 2 bolts, but we do that without incident and enjoy the last two abseils.

That’s it for the day, so we make our way back to the Räterrichsbodensee bus stop and start our way back home.

This area is like a giant playground for us… what fun!