Euschelsflue and Chaellihorn

This is our first tour from Dani Siberlnagel's new Alpinklettern book. This one is also in the SAC Tourenportal.

We take the early train-train-bus combo to Schwarzsee then the chairlift up to Riggisalp. From there it's along the dirt road to Obere Euschels (lots of people out this early!), then up=up on the well done, and nicely in the shade, blue-white path up to Golmly (fair number of people underway here too). About 1:30 to the pass.

We follow the ridge on a use trail for a bit until we find a good flat spot before things get narrow and steep. Here we do a snack break and put on the gear and rope with about 30m between us (there's a 30m climb coming up). Further along the ridge and up the climbing bit (next to the metal steps they've installed) to the first mini-peak and cool cross. Here we shorten the rope to around 20m and then continue along the ridge. It's super fun and varied with a mix of walking and scrambling. There's almost always a use trail to help get through the vegetation (and show the way). A short bit of climbing at the end takes us to the peak of the Euschelsflue. Here we do another food break before continuing along the ridge to the Chaellihorn. This is mostly in the T4/T5 zone and fun. At the Chaellihorn we pack away the gear, eat a bit more, and enjoy the views before following the, now more more prominent, use trail further along the ridge and then down, down, back to Obere Euschels. Cool note: on the way down we saw two (2!) snakes: one that looked full grown and, a couple of minutes later, a baby. We almost never see snakes.

We stop at Untere Euschels for more food and drink and then continue along the trail around the corner and then down, down to Schwarzsee Bad, where we get the bus to start the trip home.

Really nice tour with a good mix of hiking, scrambling, and climbing. As Dani says in the book: it's a good one to practice the rope handling.

Track to come.

Churfirsten fun: Paliis Nideri

 Good weather forecast, but we didn't want to get too high in order to avoid snow. So we picked a tour in the Churfirsten from the SAC Tourenportal: Paliis Nideri via the "Züsler Highway".

Trains and and a bus take us to the clinic over Walenstadtberg. From there we follow the red-white markings up, up along the road to a well-used (but unmarked) trail heading up, up through the woods to the first step. Here we meet a blue-white trail which lead us very nicely through the wall (we see a chamoix defending its position and barking at us) to the next set of fields. Here we have a quick snack before heading up, up along a use trail to the next step. Here another really nice and fun path leads us up, up and through. This is definitely one of those you look at from below and think there's no way. Up at the pass we do a sandwich break before continuing along and down, across some snow, down, down.

At Rüggli we turn right along the trail towards the Schibenstoll. Towards the bottom of that climb we head cross-country until we hit a weak use-trail (with a few cairns along the way) that leads us around the corner and into the Gluristal. We continue along the use trail until we hit the red-white trail that leads us up, up to the Hinderrugg (G ran down this when we were in the area last year) and then the Chäserrugg, where it's madness). After stopping for some food at the restaurant there we head down, down along the, at time surprisingly sketchy) red-white path towards Walendstadtberg. At the hut at Chamsässli we switch the blue-white trail off to the right that leads us down to Alp Tschingla. Here we realize that we have 50 minutes until the next bus. The sign says 1:10. If we don't make it, we'll have to either wait two hours or do a few hundred extra vertical meters down to Walenstadt. We give it a bit of gas and make the bus with five minutes to spare. :-)

A great tour in really impressive terrain. We definitely have to go back and do the "Schnürl" route. :-) 

Swiss Canyon Trail 110

 G ran this, A crewed.

Long weekend in Kandersteg

The idea here was to spend a few days doing multi-pitch climbs around Kandersteg. The first day we headed to Ueschinen and bailed on the first route we tried due to the amount of grass in the route. G didn't want another two weeks of allergy problems. We realized that this was pretty likely to be a problem for anything we tried in the area, so it became a hiking weekend.

Sunday: the thought was to head up to the Golitschepass and then over the First before heading back down to Kandersteg. This fell victim to G's unwillingness to deal with snow: after the pass there was a good-sized snow field. We knew this was possible and had poles and were wearing approach shoes, but the steepness of the snow combined with the uncertainty of whether or not worse was still to come was too much.

So we continued on hiking down, down, and then up, up to the Elsighorn (food break), then down through the crowds to the restaurant and gondola station at Esligenalp. From there we followed the red-white trail under some really nice looking (but steep!) climbing routes and then down, down, down to Frutigen, where get the train back to Kandersteg.

Monday:

Up, up and through the lovely Ueschenental. Then up, up to the ridge at the end of the Gällihore. There we have a food break and opt to skip the last bit to the peak. Down, down, under the really nice looking face (definitely need to do some of the multi-pitches here!), past the climbing hut, down down (cooling along the way by scooping up snowballs and carrying them with us) until we get to town. There we pick our stuff up from the hotel and then head back home.

We definitely need to go back in the fall and do some of the planned climbs without the risk of allergies.

Biel/Bienne to Moutier

We started with the idea of hiking through the Taubenloch from Biel/Bienne (a gorge we hadn't hiked before) and then figuring out what comes next.

From the train station there's a bit of walk through town before getting to the beginning of the gorge. Then up through the gorge, which is really nice. After the gorge it's up to the ridge and then along that for a while. While stopping for a food break we realize that it's not incredibly far to just hike to Moutier. So we set that as a possible goal (we can always stop at Court or another town along the way) and continue.

Down to Vauffelin, over the next ridge and down and through Court (saying hi to the slabs there!), then through the gorge (symmetry for the day: starting in a gorge and finishing with a gorge) to Moutier.

This was a good long hike without a ton of vertical. Great weather and good wildflowers throughout.

For future reference: this could "easily" be extended to be a ~60km trail run from Biel/Bienne to Basel: Biel/Bienne->Moutier->Delemont->Soyhieres->Kleinlutzel->Basel. There are towns to stop along the way for resupply and it wouldn't be massive vert.