Climbing the Bire

The Bire, which rises prominently above Kandersteg, has been on our climbing list for a long time. We haven't done it yet since we were always concerned about crowds. Sunday we decided to go ahead and give it a try, possible crowds be damned!

Early train from Basel to Bern and then on to Kandersteg. Walk to the gondola and then gondola up to Oeschinensee. Follow the sign for Bire climbing (uh oh...) and blue markings (eventually turning to red markings) up, up through the woods and then into the open. We're alone until we get towards the top, when another couple catches up to us and passes. The start of the route is marked with a red point, so G (of course) can't really see it... good thing A is there!

Gear on and a quick snack while waiting for the other couple to start, no one else coming behind us, so maybe it won't be crowded? We start climbing at around 10.

Really nice climbing on good rock, fantastic views (the Bluemlisalp group and other mountains have a fresh dusting of snow, which just improves things). The couple in front of us is faster than us and no one is under us, so no stress. A couple of walking bits. At the Tschäri we do another quick food break and enjoy the awesome views before switching to the approach shoes and doing the short hike to the last pitches to the peak. Here we see a third team, a pitch or two in front of the pair in front of us... still no stress at all. The last section is considerably more alpine and route finding is trickier but that's just a different kind of fun. (Note in case we do this one again: traverse to the left on the second pitch and then head up where the first bolt is... continuing around the corner is not good.).

We get to the peak at 15:00 (5 hours of climbing + breaks), have another short food break while packing up the gear and enjoying views, and then start the descent. The route down is really fun, one of those "wow, I can't believe a path leads through this terrain!" things that we enjoy so much and after 1.5 hours we are back down with the crowds at the gondola station, where we start our trip home.

The two topos we have disagree about the number and difficulty of the pitches, here's both:

According to Plaisir West: 4b, 5c, 4c, 5a, 4c, 5c, 4b, 5a, 5b, 5a, 4b, 4c, 4c

According to the SAC: 3c, 5b, 4b, 4c, 4b, 4c, 5b, 5b, 5a, 4a, 4b, 4c

This was a great day: really good climbing, a super fun descent, and great weather.