On Sunday we did the long trip down to Göscheneralp and then hiked (with heavy packs! G weighed his: 13 kilos) along the nice red-white trail up to the Bergseehütte. This is a nice trail with great views, but it was a bit too warm and the packs were a bit too heavy for this to be purely fun. Once up at the hut we checked in, had a refreshing beverage and some lunch, and then went off to do some climbing.
Challenge one: there's still a fair amount of snow up there (fun hiking across late snow over scree/talus and occasionally breaking through) and the foot of many routes is still under snow, often quite steep snow. Still, we find a route (Sunnäglanz in sector Ostwand) we can use to get used to climbing on granite again. We do the first two pitches (after that you can't abseil down and it's three pitches to the top) twice, G starting the first time and A the second, and things go fine. Doing granite slabs takes some getting used to again, but it's just soooo much fun! On the way back to the hut we do a reco tour up to the start of the routes up the Bergseeschijen. The weather forecast for Monday afternoon isn't great, so we don't want to waste a bunch of time in the morning finding the best way to the routes.
Back at the hut we enjoy a cool beverage, a good meal (it's quiet! only 12 people!), hang out for a bit and then head to bed early. We've got the room to ourselves... what a bonus!
Monday morning: we do breakfast reasonably early and are underway shortly after 6. We make it up to the start of the climbing before 7:00. The weather isn't looking great over on the other side of the ridge between us and the Rhone glacier, but it's lovely where we are, so off we go up the Via Andrea (really!). The first 6 pitches of this (4c, 4c, 5a, 5a, 4a, 5a) up the face are just fantastically fun climbing on mostly great rock. The pitches are pretty long and the distances between the bolts are occasionally long, but that just adds some extra spice to things. :-) We make excellent time (1:30 for the first 5 pitches).
Once we hit the ridge there's some walking/scrambling (we still do this in pitches since we've got the rope on and aren't quite sure when real climbing is going to materialize). Since there aren't really any bolts, there's definitely a bit of "is this the right way?" to all of this. We're now starting to hear the occasional thunder from somewhere not too far away, but things are still ok where we are. The next pitch of climbing is something like 4c (5a in the SAC guide), quite exposed and without much in the way of protection. That's followed by a 5a (5b in the SAC guide) that G leads. This one has a single bolt towards the bottom of a steep, exposed, slab and then nothing. As G passes the bolt it starts to sprinkle. Ah well, maybe will stop. At the top of the slab, there's still no bolt in sight, so G does a sling around the top and clips to that. Now it's actually raining and there's more thunder happening on the other side of the peak than is comfortable. After a bit of thinking and discussing, G swaps the quickdraw for a clip carabiner and A lowers him back to the stand. We both put on our hardshells and, as the rain gets harder, decide to head down.
Off with the climbing shoes, on with the big boots and we start abseiling through the rain. Of course, of course the rope get stuck after we finish the first abseil. G spends a bit of time trying to get it free, but realizes it isn't going to happen. Shit. We ponder a bit and then realize that since we still have both ends of the rope, the top is still going through the stand and it's safe to ascend the rope. We remind ourselves of how one ascends a rope, G rigs up the two prusiks and sling to stand in, and then starts his way up. This doesn't go particularly efficiently, but with sufficient cursing and fumbling around, he makes it up to where the knot joining the two ropes has wedged behind a flake of rock. After G frees the knot, A pulls it down to her (luckily there's still just a bit of the second rope left, it would have sucked to have to abseil past that knot) and G starts rigging up an abseil. At this point G starts to hear strange noises (almost like pressure escaping from a bottle of carbonated water where the lid is still mostly on), attributes that to static electricity in the air, and moves as quickly as possible to get the hell off the ridge. After getting down to A and pulling the rest of the rope through we take a quick energy bar break to let our pulse return to normal. By this point the rain has stopped and the thunder is moving off (yay!). [Note to our future selves: this would have been a good point to take a look at the weather radar, realize that the single bit of bad weather has just passed us, and resume the climb.] We walk/scramble carefully down to the beginning of the steep pitches and abseil the rest of the way down Via Claudia (one abseil less than Via Andrea) without too much drama aside from some a couple of stupid rope snarls.
We have a food break and enjoy the nice views (it's sunny where we are, though there are still some ugly clouds to the south) before packing the gear up and heading back down the hut.
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