Along the Arête du Raimeux

The weather forecast for Sunday wasn't bad, and we both really wanted to get out of the house, so we decided to go climbing (snowshoeing was the other possibility, but we picked climbing this time). We couldn't go too high, but wanted to do something multi-pitch, so we opted for the Arête du Raimeux outside of Moutier. We've done this together in a couple of SAC Basel climbing courses an Andrea did it during that course in another year when Greg couldn't make it, but we've never done it alone.

Arête du Raimeux

From Moutier we take the road down to the start of the climb, put on the gear, and get started. The slab is somewhat wet, so we need to be pretty careful with the footing, but the boots do fine (we have the climbing shoes with us, but we're climbing in our mountaineering boots) and we hit dry rock soon enough. The bit up to the ridge is the usual for this climb: find a route that makes sense, going from tree to tree since there aren't really that many bolts. It's great fun. We stick to the left of the slab this time since it's a bit drier at the bottom. We haven't done this before, but the going is good and there are plenty of trees and roots to hang gear off of and use as stands. :-)

on the ridge

Once on the  ridge we switch over to short rope technique and walk the rest, going around the few short climbing bits. The sun even starts to come out to go along with the 15 degree temperature. Definitely not normal February weather, but we aren't complaining at all. After some very enjoyable ridge scrambling we hit the usual lunch spot. After our break, the ridge continues past the bit with the iron steps, and then further along the ridge. At some point we drop down into a clearing and pack the gear away. Now it's a bit through the forest, along a path to the left of the ridge, before a bit of scrambling back up to the ridge and then a stretch of typical Jura ridge hiking. Up here there's actually some snow on the ground so, aside from the temperature, we can almost convince ourselves that it really is February. :-)

snow

Towards the end of the ridge we hit the hiking path and turn right for the hike back down to Moutier. This is a lovely Sunday stroll in the sun, through a bit of snow at first, down, down, along a path we know well, until we hit town.

A great way to spend a warm February day!