The Niesen North Ridge

The original plan to take advantage of the fantastic weather, but somewhat unusual snow conditions was to climb the Simmeflue, which is a tour we definitely enjoy. As we were waiting to change trains in Spiez the Niesen caught our eye (the normal hiking route up looks free of snow) and we joked around doing that instead. It was only joking around since Greg had done some trail running the day before and had pretty tired legs. On the train to Wimmis we notice that the North side of the Niesen is also largely snow free; we've talked about doing the North ridge a few times but whenever we've thought about it the conditions have never been right. We take some reco-photos and Andrea does some very quick Hikr research and by the time we get to Wimmis 5 minutes later we've more or less changed our plans. Another quick bit of reading and looking in Wimmis decides it: we're doing the North ridge of the Niesen, not the Simmeflue. :-)

We start through town, gently ascending,  until we hit the woods at the edge of town, where the forest road starts climbing for real. We ignore the "trail closed" signs (there was apparently a rockslide last year that took out the trail after Im Hindere Ahorn, but we aren't planning on doing that anyway) and head up, up, up. We start with about 900m of climbing under the trees on a mix of trail and forest road, nowhere too steep, just up, up, up. In the clearing at Im Vordere Ahorni we stop at the very nicely situated picnic table, have a food break, and enjoy the views. 

Another bit on the nice trail through the woods and then at the next picnic table we turn off onto a smaller trail and start heading up the ridge. From here on out we stay mostly only the ridge and are doing more of a direttissima. We do hit some snow patches along the way, but we've got ice axes with us and are wearing the big boots, so these aren't too bad (since some of them are over rocks we still try and avoid them to the extent possible). At around 2000m we come out of the trees, take another food break with great views,...

.... and then finish the last few hundred vertical meters to the top, where we get the fun of climbing over the ladder onto the tourist platform and into the crowd. It's a super clear day, so the views are spectacular. We hang out for a bit to enjoy the views, decide not to walk down (there's no way this is going to be fun for greg), and go wait the 15 minutes for the next funicular down.

It doesn't get much more "Andrea Special" than this: off the train and then 1700m of constant climbing. :-) It was a great tour: a nice route, lots of vertical, excellent views. No real scrambling, but you can't have everything. ;-)

Track
Stats: 8.1km, 1697m up, 28m down