Thursday
We took the train to Unterwasser on Thursday morning, dropped our bags at the hotel (which happened to have our room ready... such a bonus!), and then split up and did some trail running/hiking in the Churfirsten for the rest of the day. It had rained like hell the previous day and overnight and remained overcast, so climbing wasn't a great idea. Still, we both had good days in the mountains and met back at the hotel for a rest and then dinner.
Friday
Friday was a beautiful, blue sky day. In the morning we hiked up to the Schattenwand and got set up to start with the three-pitch route Schlüsselblümli. Unfortunately it became clear pretty quickly as G was leading the first pitch that there was a ton of grass in the route. This wasn't any kind of problem for the climbing, but G didn't want to end up with ook on his hands again. So he came back down. A then led the pitch so we didn't have to leave anything behind and we packed everything up and did the very nice hike over to the Klettergarten Stoss. The rock here looked super nice, but is fully exposed to the sun and it was pretty crowded in the section of the wall where the easier routes were. A tried Heinz (5b+), but that was a bit too much for the first climbing here. G was already mentally done, so we packed the stuff up again and hiked back to town. Not much of a climbing day, but we had beautiful weather, great views, and some good hiking.
Saturday
Saturday was another perfect weather day. We left the climbing stuff at the hotel (rather than risk another day with no real climbing) and did an alpine hike instead. We took the bus to Wildhaus and headed from there along easy paths to Gamplüt. Then it was red-white steeply uphill along a nice grassy ridge to the back of the Wildhuser Schofberg. Here we took a food break, enjoyed the views, and scoped out the route ahead of us while we discussed what to do next. There was a considerable amount of steep snow in the next stage of the blue-white trail in front of us. There were clear tracks in the snow and other people underway, but G was still really nervous about the snow. In the end, G gathered himself, we changed into the approach shoes (we'd been wearing trail-running shoes to that point and carrying the approach shoes in a backpack), and we started off. G didn't enjoy the traverse across the snow or the descent into the bowl, but the snow was soft enough that it was no problem. The hike/scramble back up the other side to the saddle next to the Jöchli was fun (a bit of snow at the top, but ascending is always easier than traversing or descending). From the saddle we went up the Jöchli itself to enjoy the crazy views and then continued along the trail under the Nädlingergrat. This would have been even more fun if there were no snow in it, but it was still pretty good. At the end of the ridge we hit the red-white hiking path crossing from the Rotsteinpass to the Zwinglipass and followed this (a couple before us had take the very quick way down by descending a steep snow field... this was too much for us). After sliding down the last bit of snow of the initial descent, we follow this very well trampled path to the Zwinglipasshütte. A cool beverage and snack while enjoying the views, then on with the trail running shoes and a mostly very nice hike/run back to Unterwasser. This was a great day hiking, despite the snow. :-)
