on shepherd's paths in Ticino

 placeholder, more hopefully to come

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Schrattenflue climbing and hiking

 We wanted something mentally easy this weekend, so we opted for climbing at a crag instead of something more ambitious. After some poking around in the tourenportal to try and find crags likely to get a bit less sun, we decided on the Schrattenflue.

Saturday morning: bus to Hirsegg, then up, up, up towards Heftbode. At first along road, then under trees (yay, shade!), always up, up. Out of the trees and into fun limestone landscape, up, up until we get to the Heftihutte (what a great location... too bad there's no water in the summer) and the ridge. Lunch break enjoying the views and then we wander around a bit to orient ourselves and figure out where what is.

We decide to start with an easy (5a) route on the Kleine Nadel. This ends up being way trickier than anticipated and neither of us wants to go past the second bolt (sandbagged rating? typo? just not used to climbing on limestone? who knows). It's no problem since all the routes on the spire go to the same stand. Plan B is the 4b Suedriss; except we can't find that one at all. The crack is clearly visible, but there are no bolts visible. Plan C is the 4a (obvious bolts up high, but nothing towards the ground). Plan D is the 3a on the backside (this is now getting absurd). Here there's at least one bolt, but the rest of the route has none. At this point doing free solo doesn't sound great. A engages problem-solving mode and uses the first bolt on the back to get to the 4a. This way she makes it to the top. Next plan is for her to clean out the quickdraws on this side (not easy due to rope drag and the rope getting pinched). Then back to the top and G will lower her over the "5a" to recover the quickdraws. BUT... the rope keeps getting stuck and this doesn't work. We eventually get her to the ground and manage to get the rope down (that was a near thing). A cleans out the 5a by heading to the second bolt and leaving a clip behind. 

That was frustrating... back to the hut for a food break and to decide what to do next. Neither of us is particularly motivated at this point, but G has noticed a route which looks pretty easy and nice. So after a bit of a rest we check that out, eventually figure out which route it is and confirm that it's a 5a. G starts this time and makes it easily through the fun beginning before getting to a steeper bit somewhat lacking in holds. At this point motivation fails, but there's a maillon in the last bolt, so turning back is easy. A does the beginning and reaches the same conclusion about the steep top, and that's that for the day's climbing.

We pack the gear up and head down, down, down, back to the bus stop and then 15 minutes along the road to our hotel. Check in, shower, do some really nice wellness, have a nap, good dinner, and then sleep.

Sunday we are underway by 8:30. Up, up, up we go again. Nice hiking... at some point we make a navigational error which takes us on a trail too far to the left; easily corrected with a traverse along cow trails back to the main path and then up, up through cool limestone. Past a few routes in a hole (you need to abseil to them), then up a bit more until we get to the Schiff routes. There's another group of 5 climbing here, but there are plenty of routes.

After yesterday we start with a couple easy 4b's just to get our brains working. Next is a 5b which goes without problems. Food break in the cool and shady hole (sitting next to an enormous block of surviving snow)... would be fun to climb one of the routes in here, but only one looks like it could be safely belayed and the beginning of that is tricky to get to because of the snow. Anyway... back out of the hole, another 5b (also pretty easy), then G does a 4b on the edge (in trail running shoes) to get a good picture. It's now getting too hot to climb, so we pack up and figure out a nice hike out.

We opt to head to Kemmeriboden Bad via the Hengst. This gives us a nice bit staying up high in the karst landscape with great views before heading down, down, down. Notable things on the way down: past the Clushuette, which has a potable water tap (yay!) and then another spring + trough under the trees most of the way down to cool down before hitting the bus stop. We had time, so the plan was to have drinks at the hotel before getting on the bus. Unfortunately the hotel was badly flooded in early July, so it's closed. :-(

Nice climbing (on the second day at least), and some great hiking.

[Tracks to come]

Becs de Bosson Bivvy

 text and track to come

Bergpunkt Eiskurs

 text and track to come