Norway day 4: climbing the Store Venjetinden

Our last day with David and the most ambitious of the trips: climbing the Store Venjetinden via the route "Dream Dihedral". The peak is super prominent and dominates the view out the living room window of our flat, so it's extra fun to be climbing it.

There are clouds in the valley, which leads to some nervousness (particularly after yesterday), but we drive up out of them and end up under lovely blue skies, yay!

We put on the packs (heavy since we have crampons and ice axes with us) and head steeply up, up along a clear  use trail (well, clear as long as you know where it starts). At first we're in green, then we transition to moving up and across some slabs. We're in the shade (which is nice for ascending) and have great views back across the clouds in the valley. At some point it's steep enough (at and times slippery enough) that David has us rope up and start moving on a short rope. Up, up we go until we hit a larger snow patch. Here we break out the ice axes and head up, up the steadily steepening snow (by the end it's over 40 deg, but it's good "Trittschnee", so not overly nervous-making for g) until we hit the rock.

Transition to the rock, some food, on with the climbing shoes, boots into the packs, and the real climbing starts. It's a very, very nice route. The rock is great and there's a lovely mix of styles (face, crack, and stemming), such an absolute pleasure. Having David do the leading means all we have to do is enjoy the climbing... luxury! Too bad it's only six pitches, we would happily have done more, particularly of the dihedral!

When we get to the ridge we change back into the big boots and enjoy the views a bit (except for the view down onto the couloir which we plan to descend... that makes g unhappy) before doing the last bit to the peak on a short rope. Some traversing under the ridge until we meet the "N ridge" route, which we follow up to the peak. Really amazing 360 panoramic views from here! 

After plenty of pictures and fun we start the descent. This seems funny at first because we start out by going the wrong way, but after some walking and down-scrambling and snow crossing we end up on "Gallery" path: a really nice narrow path along a band that takes us around the corner and to the top of the couloir between the Store Venjetinden and the Lille Venjetinden. It's a great relief to g that the snow doesn't seem as steep as it did when we were above it. Out come the ice axes, on go the gloves and we start the descent. An initial experiment with sliding ends up with a three-way wipeout, so we just go with plunge-stepping down. Down down down we go until the snow runs out at a short waterfall. David lowers us over this (yay! canyoning!), abseils down to us, and then we continue. Down, down, until near the end of the snow, transition to rock, more descent and traversal, down another snow field, down, down, transition to rock, more traversing, down down another snow field, and then we're back on the path we took up in the morning. Last bit of descending and then we're at the car. David had estimated 3 hours up, 3 hours of climbing, and 3 hours for the descent; it took us 9:13 including all the breaks.

Stats: 9:13, 7.9km, 1390m up and down.

Grassenbiwak and Grassen

 The plan for the weekend was to go to the Grassenbiwak on Saturday and then climb the Klein Titlis south face to get to the Titlis (there's a description of this in one of Dani Silbernagel's books). We started this last year, but Greg wasn't feeling great, so we turned around during the hike up to the Grassenbiwak.

Saturday

We take the bus to Herrenrüti, follow the trail up the valley a bit and then turn off and start heading up, up. It's a lovely blue-sky day and not overly warm... good hiking. Up, up we go, at first through the woods, but then more open, switching to the blue-white path at the place we turned around last time, and then up, up some more with great views under the towering east wall of the Titlis. We're definitely noticing that this is the first trip of the season with heavy packs. We do a food break at around 1900m and then follow the path across onto the glacier moraine. Up, up some more along the moraine and then we hit the first snow. The rest of the way to the ridge is a mix of kicking steps in steep snow, scrambling, and normal blue-white hiking. It's not always trivial to find the trail (some markings probably under snow, no visible trail because of the snow) and the snow->rock transitions are occasionally tricky, but we make steady progress. The last bit to the ridge even has some cables in it (that makes the route finding easy!). Once on the ridge the route finding gets easy (<smile>) and we continue on to the biwak. There are clear, and relatively fresh looking, tracks coming down from the Grassen so we are happy to discover that we are, at least at the moment, alone.

The biwak is super cozy and well equipped, so we get the stove going, boil some water, and have coffee/tea and enjoy the views along with our last sandwiches. It's a nice, quiet late afternoon. As it gets later some weather starts to come in and by the time we do dinner there's thunder and lightning on the other side of the Titlis and it's almost raining. We don't get a sunset, but there are at least some nice cloudscapes. During the night it rains pretty heavily and we get some more thunder and lightning; it's fun to lay warm and cozy in the hut and hear all that going on outside. :-)

Track from Saturday:

Stats: 5:29, 8.9km, ~1600m up

Sunday

We're in a cloud when we wake up. It's still mostly there after breakfast, so we do a post-breakfast nap to give the sun some time to do its job. By the time we start packing up at 8:30 it's cleared up some, though the Titlis itself is still mostly covered. We've decided that doing the original route isn't a great idea since the route-finding is supposed to be tricky and being in a cloud would just be too much (plus the approach yesterday was a bit more adventurous than anticipated and it's still early season in our heads), so when we set out it's towards the Grassen (the destination for our first self-organized Hochtour eight years ago). We head down the ridge from the hut to the glacier, rope up, and the follow the tracks up, up towards the Grassen. 

The ascent track turns off and seems to head more directly towards the Stössensattel, and the descent track is a direttissima, so Andrea gets to do some trail stamping as we zigzag up, up towards the peak. The snow is a bit too soft, but otherwise conditions are good and we make our way without problems to the ridge and follow the well-work track the rest of the way to the peak. Unsurprisingly, there are people up here. :-) After a food break and some view enjoyment on the peak (the Titlis is still largely in clouds), we start back along the ridge to follow the normal route back to the Sustlihütte. Easy along the ridge, through the pass, down the steep bit through the rocks (there's still snow here, but apparently not as much as last time), then down, down until we get to the hut.

At the hut we stop for some tea and cake and enjoy the views and the spectacle of the crowds doing the Kanzelgrat before starting our way down the Leiterliweg to the road and the bus stop. We've still got some time, so we hang out by the river, enjoy our last sandwiches, and then get on the bus to start the long trip back to Basel.

This wasn't what we had planned, but it was a definitely a very nice plan B.

Track from Sunday:

Stats: ~4:00, 6.7km, 420m up, ~1150m down

Finsteraarhorn tour

day 1: Grimpselpass (2164m) to Berghaus Oberaar (2337m): first views of the Finsteraarhorn

day 2: Berghaus Oberaar (2337m) - Finsteraarhornhütte (3050m): long glacier trek

day 3: Finsteraarhornhütte (3050m) - Finsteraarhorn (4274m) - Finsteraarhornhütte (3050m): summit day

day 4: Finsteraarhornhütte (3050m) - Konkordiaplatz - Fiescheralp (2214m): long glacier trek

Track:

Doing the Ortstock east ridge

Based on the forecast and the fact that greg got back late Friday night from a work trip, we decided for a lazy Saturday and a long(ish) Sunday this weekend. So Saturday afternoon we went to Braunwald and then Sunday we did the East ridge of the Ortstock. Nine years ago we were also on the Ortstock as part of a tour from Braunwald to the Glattalphütte, somehow that blog post never made it out of the "text coming stage"... tja. That time we came up via the hiking route from the Furggele, this time we wanted to take a more adventurous route up.

Saturday was the expected laziness: a slow morning, a later train, and then a stroll around Braunwald before checking into the hotel/hostel. The weather isn't great, but the forecast for the next day is good, so we go to bed optimistic.

Sunday starts reasonably late (it's not a mountain hut, so breakfast doesn't start super early) under cloudless blue skies and great views of the Ortstock. and it's East ridge.

We start the same way as last time: heading out of town and up, up, through the woods to the hanging valley. Across the valley and then up the end towards the Bärentritt. Here we pass the first other group of people we've seen (big packs... maybe they are also planning some climbing?). The route through the Bärentritt is nice, but certainly less dramatic than we remember (we've come a long way in the last decade), and we're up top before you know it.

Now we're moving into terra incognita. We've got a couple of descriptions from hikr and one from the SAC tourenportal, so we're pretty sure we know what to do. After a short food break we leave the path and head cross-country towards the ridge.

This starts off pretty flat, but then turns into steeper grass. After crossing a small patch of scree we start to enter a more exposed section at around 2100m (this is easily visible on the map), always heading up up. As this steepens a bit more the ice axes come out (they work sooooo well on steep grass!) and we continue up, up into the T6 part of the program. At some point we start seeing yellow/orange dots marking the way (cool! no more concern about being on the right route); these lead us ever upwards, sometimes with pretty dodgy, steeply up, up until we hit the saddle in the ridge.

Here we take another food break and put on the climbing gear (Andrea's attempt to toss her harness down the mountain is, fortunately, unsuccessful). Then we hit the rock and start climbing. The first bit of this is actual climbing (4a according to the tourenportal, but who knows...) on decent rock with a few bolts along the way. Andrea leads this and greg follows. It's soooo odd to be climbing/scrambling on limestone after all the granite in the Sierras!. Thanks to the markings and the occasional bolt, staying on route is straightforward, which is good since the rock in the scrambling sections of the route isn't what one might hope and it quickly becomes outright dangerous if you deviate (something greg discovered at one point, leading to one big rock dislodged and a big burst of adrenalin). There generally tends to be something around that the rope can be attached to. The classification of this in the tourenportal as a hochtour and not alpine climbing makes perfect sense: aside from that first pitch, this has much more in common with standard mountaineering ridge route than rock climbing.

After a couple of hours of this we're on a peak. At the time we think this is the Vorder Ortstock, but doubts emerge later and, after looking at the track, we end up being pretty sure that it was actually one of the other spires on the ridge. Still, that's where the markings led us. Everything we've read recommends not continuing along the ridge from this point (the rock is bad and it's extremely exposed), so we follow the markings into the North face and further onwards towards the Ortstock. There are a couple of small snow fields here that we cross at the top (easy) and then a larger one towards the end that we also cross at the top. This one's less easy due the amount of loose crap on top of the ice/rock, but we make it through. Then it's onwards, always staying next to the rock and following the dots until we emerge on the Ortstock itself.

This is one of those routes and peaks where you can emerge from nowhere into a crowd of hikers (always fun!), but we're late enough that there's only one person on the peak, so we don't get to have that bit of fun. Ah well, it's also nice to have the peak mostly to ourselves. :-)

After another snack break and packing the technical gear away and another snack break we head down the hiking path to the saddle between the Ortstock and the Höch Turm (there's supposedly an mountaineering route up that one too... worth considering for a future trip!), then down, down, through the Bärentritt and back down, down, down to Braunwald and the beginning of the trip home.

This was an interesting tour that, despite the low altitude, definitely deserves the ZS rating and requires some concentration. It sure would be nice if the rock was better throughout, but you take what you get. :-)


Track:
Stats: 14.3km, ~1650m up and down

Climbing the Piz Buin

This weekend, Andrea went with the SAC to climb the Piz Buin.
(greg had already left for CA.)

After travelling for a long long time, we started walking in Guarda, in a big group of 13, up the pretty Val Tuoi and reached shortly after a nice lunch break the Chamonna Tuoi.

While some decided to stay at the hut and rest, others went up to the lake underneath the Fuorcla Vermunt for a swim or just a walk. Dark clouds came up and we hurried back down to hut, skipping and dancing along the way. After a somewhat disappointing dinner and some practicing of knots and rope-handling, bed-time came soon.

After breakfast at 5am, we were underway shortly after 5h30, first along the path up around the Cronsel to Plan Rai, then further around the corner over a few snow fields to the notch south-east of the Fuorcla dal Cunfin. We were met by fog and low clouds, roped up and went the short bit over the Ochsentaler Gletscher to the Buinlücke in between Piz Buin Grond and Piz Buin Pitschen. Off with the ropes again and up over rocks to the small saddle on the ridge. Before and after our (big) group lots and lots of other groups came up from a hut on the Austrian side of the mountain, long long ant-trails on the glacier...it's going to be busy up there....

 ....after some waiting but then only a bit of scrambling, the terrain on the ridge was easy enough for walking again, up up up to the peak. A break on the peak, enjoying the views and being both amused and shocked by the masses and masses of people already there and coming up behind us.

Then back down the ridge, roped up over the glacier, un-roped sliding down some snow-fields, around the corner, taking the direct route down some steep gras flank from the Cronsel to the river, we were back at the hut before 2pm. After some cake and a cool drink, we packed up and made our way back down the valley to catch the first bus for a long and hot and crowded ride home.

A long weekend at the Rotondo hut

We had originally planned to do a three day weekend with the SAC, but that got cancelled due to a dodgy weather forecast. Fortunately we had a backup plan ready.

Day 1:
Hike up from Realp to the Rotondohütte. The first bit of the road is the same last time (though we saw two European adders/vipers this time!) but then we head off onto a trail that takes us to the Rottälligrat. Here we follow what is obviously the old route once we get past Stelliboden (the new route isn't on the map yet), but this still takes us up nicely into the fun alpine landscape.

We rejoin the new (red-white) trail at the crossing of the trail towards Furkapass (there's a bunch of new/improved trail work up here, likely due to the growing popularity of the 4 Quellenweg). Up, up to the saddle and then we stay on the blue-white path the last bit to p2748. We're both glad to have the climbing done with - it's hot and the packs are heavy, so our legs are tired! Along the lovely block ridge with good views (though the Witenwasserenstock is in clouds), past the sign for "Mount Sunrise", and then down to the hut.

We get settled in, enjoy some cool beverages and a piece of cake, rest for a bit, and then have a good dinner and head off the bed. The hut's a bit more than half full, everyone else seems to be hikers who are doing the 4 Quellenweg.


Stats:  10.4km, 1200m up, 220m down.

Day 2:
We saw the Leckihörner when we stayed at the Rotondohütte last year to climb the Witenwasserenstock. The traverse of the two peaks is also described in Dani's book and it looked really cool. That's the plan for today.
We start with decent conditions (though we still can't see the Witenwasserenstock) and follow the blue-white path down to the glacier. We rope up and start towards the Witenwasserenpass. When we get close to the long snowfield that heads up to the ridge it looks less steep than it did from the hut. Since snow conditions are good and the snow goes all the way up, we opt to head up that way. Once at the ridge we take off the crampons, get out the climbing gear and start our way along the ridge.

We're in clouds and the weather is in general pretty crappy, so we don't have any views at all and the landmarks on the ridge aren't exactly easy to find/follow. At some point it actually rains for a few minutes, so we put on our hardshells and wait that out. In the approach to the Cli Leckihorn there's a spot with some 3c climbing and then an abseil we were planning on doing, but we end up taking the less technically challenging but more loose and exposed route around that since we think we're at the "reddish tower" we're not supposed to climb (the winner quote from G at the beginning of that: "there's no way going up this bit is second grade climbing, this must be where we're supposed to go around"). Eventually we end up on what we think is the peak of the Chli Leckihorn and we start to follow the ridge down to where we're expecting to hit a snow field we need to cross. At some point A catches a glimpse through the cloud of a snow field off to our left. To our left? There's not supposed to be a snowfield to our left! We figure out that we're heading down the N ridge instead of the W ridge, so we turn around to head back up. Along the way we get enough of a clearing in the clouds to see the snowfield we're supposed to be crossing and the saddle at the beginning of the ridge to the Gross Leckihorn that we're supposed to be crossing to. Yeah! We break out the ice axes, decide against the crampons since the snow is good, and cross to the saddle.

A pitch of climbing up around a thin tower, a pitch of mostly scrambling, and then we shorten up the rope and continue along the really nice, mostly narrow and exposed, ridge to the peak.

There's a bit of down climbing to the cross, where a family that's hiked up from the hut is sitting and gawking (must be funny to see two people emerge from the fog above you when you feel like you're alone at the top of a mountain). Total time including breaks to the cross is 5:20 (Dani says 4-5, so we're pretty happy with this).We pack the gear away, chat with the family for bit (three generations!), have some food, enjoy the occasional bit of view, and then start down. At the saddle (that G thinks is the Leckipass) we opt to head down the snowfield, which is a bit steeper than G would like, but definitely manageable. Down, down we go the rest of the way to the hut. Total trip time is just under 7 hours. Cool beverages, some resting, a dinner that's really not up to the expected standard, even for a full hut, and then off to bed. Thanks to all the fog, the bit of rain, and the difficult route finding (on a ridge!), it was not an easy day mentally, but we certainly enjoyed ourselves and are a bit proud of ourselves for having pulled it off.
Stats: 6km, 600m up, 600m down

Day 3:
Our original plan was a long traverse of the Muttenhörner, but after reading about an interesting-sounding route to the Gotthardpass in a book at the hut we opt for that instead. The day starts with lovely blue skies and the first view of the Witenwasserenstock that we've had this entire trip.

We follow the blue-white path down to the lake at the foot of the glacier and then up, up the moraine to the Hüenerstock. A lot of work has been put into this trail and it's probably only still blue-white because they haven't gotten around to painting over the markings. By the time we get to the peak clouds have started to come in, so we have nice views back to the North, but it's spotty to the South. Now along the ridge on a really nice laid and (excessively) well marked red-white trail that takes us easily along the ridge with clouds blowing over from the South, past the Hüenersattel, and along the old military way over the Ronggergrat to the Passo di Cavanna.

Here we take a quick food break out of the wind and then head down the other side of the pass, down, down, down until we hit the blue-white trail towards the Passo di Lucendro and the Gotthard. More nice hiking under the face of the Pizzo Lucendro, into the cloud, and then steeply up to the Cresta del Poncinetto. They're in the process of putting a bunch of chains in here to make the step easy (and, probably, to get this over to red-white too). Really high winds on the ridge and pass, but we manage to get out of the wind to have another food break by the old buildings near the pass. Given the low clouds, we opt not to take the interesting (and unmarked) route down to the pass, but stick to the normal hiking path. This takes us down, down, past the Lago di Lucendro, into ever more threatening looking clouds. About half an hour from the pass it starts to rain. Fortunately it only rains hard for a few minutes of that and we make it to the buildings at the pass before the sky really cracks open. We've got some time, so we grab some food before getting on the bus and starting the long trip back home.

Stats: 14.7km, 780m up, 1270m down

Climbing the Clariden

As greg was travelling, Andrea went for her birthday with the SAC to climb the Clariden. Even though the original plan of a traverse via the south ridge did not happen, we had a great stay at the Planurahut and a great traverse up the normal route and descent via west ridge and Iswändli down to Klausenpass.

The Schlieren-Uri Rotstock traverse

The alp doesn't do really early breakfast, so we don't get the earliest start, but we are underway by shortly before 6:30. The weather is lovely: blue sky and cool. We start along the standard path towards the Uri Rotstock and turn up at the point where the path from the hut meets the traversing trail (where we scouted the previous day). From here it's steeply up the mostly grassy slope until we hit the entrance of the couloir. Here we put on our helmets and climbing harnesses (in case we need them) and then head up through the couloir. The first bit of this is the day's crux: an ugly bit of ascent over the first step on bad rock. With this behind us we take the right couloir and climb up and out onto the steep grass slope to the right. This we ascend to the ridge where we encounter the first of the blue stripes that we will be following the rest of the way to the Uri Rotstock. It's great to have those blue stripes too, because unlike last week this isn't a "just follow the narrow ridge" climb - the route finding would be "non-trivial" if it weren't marked.

on the ridge, ready to climb

This is another great ridge: mostly good rock, relatively straightforward scrambling, excellent views, lovely lovely. The exposure is considerably less than last week, so we end up not using the rope. We have a great time and are on top of the Schlieren before we know it. At the peak we take a short break to eat and drink a bit and enjoy the views. There's a fantastic view of the ridge leading up to the Uri Rotstock as well as the Rotstock itself the people standing on its peak. We've been alone to this point, but it's clear that ends as soon as we make it up there. 

on the Schlieren, with view of the ridge leading up to the Uri Rotstock

After our break we head down, down into the saddle (the Schlierenlücke) and then follow the ridge up to the Rotstock. This gets off to a great start with a nice narrow chimney, but is otherwise considerably less interesting than the ridge to the Schlieren, and once we hit the red parts the quality of the rock deteriorates considerably. The "gate" that we get to go through is pretty cool though. :-)
We hit the peak of the Uri Rotstock 4:10 after leaving the alp. That includes a couple of short breaks. Silbernagel suggests 4-5 hours, so we're pretty happy with this. It's a good thing that the peak of the Rotstock is broad, because there a tons of people up here. Loads of people enjoying the relatively easy blue-white path up from either Musenalp or Biwaldalp.

crowds on top of the Uri Rotstock

We have lunch and enjoy the excellent views and general madness before starting down the blue-white path that leads down the other side. This is initially crowded (holy crap are there a ton of people doing this hike!), but after the path to Musenalp forks off and we split off onto the "more difficult" route to Biwaldalp we are mostly alone. Down, down we go, along the moraine, past the Gitschenhörlihütte and then along a really nice hiking path that traverses and gently descends the slope under the Schlieren, leading us with great views back to Biwaldalp. The total tour time is just under 7 hours. Not bad.

on the way down

We've got some time, so we enjoy some cool beverages and have lunch at the alp while enjoying the sun and the views. After a good break we put the packs on again and follow the path down, down, down to St. Jakob, where we meet the bus that starts our journey back to Basel.

Another really nice tour!

An aside: this tour is from Dani Silbernagel's Hochtouren Topoführer Urner, Glarner, Tessiner Alpen. This is the second one of his E2 tours that we've completed on our own.

The track:
Stats: 9km, 1330m up and down.
The hike to St Jakob (not on this track) was 3.4km and 690m down.

Monte Leone traverse via the WSW ridge

This is planned to be a long day, so we get an early start with breakfast at 4 and are underway before 5. We start up under a cloudless sky with a very bright quarter moon and head up, up from the pass along the route we scouted the day before. The going is good and the trail is easy to follow, particularly after we put fresh batteries in g's headlamp. 

early start

Up, up we go, noticing a group of four behind us, past the edge of one of the ridges of the Hübschhorn, and up some more until we hit a big talus field. This we traverse reasonably efficiently (good balance practice early in the day), and then find a reasonably easy route up the step beyond it, where we see the first of the green points that will lead us to the glacier. The group of four is about even with us now, but they pick a different route through the talus and never end up super close (thankfully! the solitude is nice!). The green points lead us up through some really nice glacier-polished terrain and, though we eventually lose them, we make it easily to the edge of the glacier. We have a short break (it's windy and is cold once you stop moving!) put on the crampons, break out the ice axes, and rope in, and head up the glacier. The group of four pass us at this point since they're doing the ascent without being roped in (doing a glacier without carrying an ice axe and without roping in is... um... yeah. We're certainly hoping that they are planning to do the normal route to the Monte Leone). Up, up, up we go, at first on good snow and then, once we hit the bottom of the ridge to the Breithorn traversing on ice that's not too steep and nicely grippy (yay! the nature of this stretch was the cause of a lot of concern... g was worried that we'd end up turning back here).

on the Homattu glacier, conditions good

At the saddle we pass the group of four (taking a rest) and continue to the edge of the snow before putting away the crampons, shortening the rope a bit (8-10 m), and the continuing on our way behind a guy traveling alone who overtook us on the way up the glacier (he was flying). We ascend a bit through the talus and hit the West-South-West ridge of the Monte Leone just past p3393. During the ascent we have and interesting angle on the ridge that makes p3424 look quite dramatic... going to be interesting to see how we get up/down that!

first view of the Monte Leone and the west ridge (left)

The ridge is just great. It's a mixture of normal walking, a some light climbing (3a-3c?), some narrow "balance-beam" bits, everything you could want. The rock is mostly quite good (though we definitely check all grips and steps before using them), there are normally decent "Zacken" to put the rope over when we aren't right on the ridge, and the views are really good. It's also quite exposed for most of the way. We simul-climb the length of the ridge with about 10m of rope between us. Andrea starts leading and we switch about halfway through. The whole thing takes us about 1:45 to do. Almost two hours of big, big fun. :-)

along the WSW ridge

Some clouds form, and move off, and form again as we're moving along the ridge. When we get to the peak we aren't in a cloud (yay!) but don't have the awesome views we'd otherwise have. Nice view down to Alpe Veglia though. The only other person on the peak is that guy who powered by us on the glacier, he's come up the normal route, and he leaves a couple minutes after we get there. There's no sign of the other four (who have also chosen the normal route). We have a quick food break (it's a long day and we can't do long breaks, plus the clouds are disrupting the good views) and then start down the normal route. This is considerably less nice (though easier) than the route we just took: lots more loose rock and general unpleasantness. The route finding is also more difficult than it seems like it should be, but maybe we're both just a bit tired. On the way down we cross the group of four, still on their way up. The place to descend to the glacier is reasonably obvious. On the descent we cross another group of three: an Italian guide with two customers who seem to be struggling. It's not early in they day, so that can't be much fun.

view from the peak down to Alpe Veglia

Back down at the Alpjer glacier we put on the crampons, lengthen the rope and add a few knots,  and then head out behind the other guy to cross the glacier. This is mostly a traverse at constant height, but we're not doing it slowly (dark clouds are moving in behind the peak) and the sun is out again, so it's plenty warm. We we come off the glacier we quickly take off the crampons for the stretch of rock (not really necessary, but certainly more comfortable), gather up the rope, and head on. Back at the snow again we put the crampons go back on and then head down. The first traverse/descent part goes easily (yay for sun-softened ice) and once we get back on the snow everything is super easy. You can't quite glissade with crampons on, but we maintain a good fluid pace down; fun stuff. Back at the rock we pack away all the gear and then head down, down, down. The route down is a bit different (in particular we aren't nearly as efficient in the big talus field below the step), but we make it back to the Simplon Hospiz with time to rinse off a bit, change, and pack everything away before getting on the bus and starting the long, hot trip home.

across the Alpjer glacier

down down down towards Simplon Hospiz

This was a long, but fantastic tour.

An aside: this tour is from Dani Silbernagel's Hochtouren Topoführer Urner, Glarner, Tessiner Alpen. This is the first one of his E2 tours that we've completed on our own.

Track:

Stats: ~18km, ~1600m up and down. We were underway for 11:20, including breaks.