Euschelsflue and Chaellihorn

This is our first tour from Dani Siberlnagel's new Alpinklettern book. This one is also in the SAC Tourenportal.

We take the early train-train-bus combo to Schwarzsee then the chairlift up to Riggisalp. From there it's along the dirt road to Obere Euschels (lots of people out this early!), then up=up on the well done, and nicely in the shade, blue-white path up to Golmly (fair number of people underway here too). About 1:30 to the pass.

We follow the ridge on a use trail for a bit until we find a good flat spot before things get narrow and steep. Here we do a snack break and put on the gear and rope with about 30m between us (there's a 30m climb coming up). Further along the ridge and up the climbing bit (next to the metal steps they've installed) to the first mini-peak and cool cross. Here we shorten the rope to around 20m and then continue along the ridge. It's super fun and varied with a mix of walking and scrambling. There's almost always a use trail to help get through the vegetation (and show the way). A short bit of climbing at the end takes us to the peak of the Euschelsflue. Here we do another food break before continuing along the ridge to the Chaellihorn. This is mostly in the T4/T5 zone and fun. At the Chaellihorn we pack away the gear, eat a bit more, and enjoy the views before following the, now more more prominent, use trail further along the ridge and then down, down, back to Obere Euschels. Cool note: on the way down we saw two (2!) snakes: one that looked full grown and, a couple of minutes later, a baby. We almost never see snakes.

We stop at Untere Euschels for more food and drink and then continue along the trail around the corner and then down, down to Schwarzsee Bad, where we get the bus to start the trip home.

Really nice tour with a good mix of hiking, scrambling, and climbing. As Dani says in the book: it's a good one to practice the rope handling.

Track to come.

Churfirsten fun: Paliis Nideri

 Good weather forecast, but we didn't want to get too high in order to avoid snow. So we picked a tour in the Churfirsten from the SAC Tourenportal: Paliis Nideri via the "Züsler Highway".

Trains and and a bus take us to the clinic over Walenstadtberg. From there we follow the red-white markings up, up along the road to a well-used (but unmarked) trail heading up, up through the woods to the first step. Here we meet a blue-white trail which lead us very nicely through the wall (we see a chamoix defending its position and barking at us) to the next set of fields. Here we have a quick snack before heading up, up along a use trail to the next step. Here another really nice and fun path leads us up, up and through. This is definitely one of those you look at from below and think there's no way. Up at the pass we do a sandwich break before continuing along and down, across some snow, down, down.

At Rüggli we turn right along the trail towards the Schibenstoll. Towards the bottom of that climb we head cross-country until we hit a weak use-trail (with a few cairns along the way) that leads us around the corner and into the Gluristal. We continue along the use trail until we hit the red-white trail that leads us up, up to the Hinderrugg (G ran down this when we were in the area last year) and then the Chäserrugg, where it's madness). After stopping for some food at the restaurant there we head down, down along the, at time surprisingly sketchy) red-white path towards Walendstadtberg. At the hut at Chamsässli we switch the blue-white trail off to the right that leads us down to Alp Tschingla. Here we realize that we have 50 minutes until the next bus. The sign says 1:10. If we don't make it, we'll have to either wait two hours or do a few hundred extra vertical meters down to Walenstadt. We give it a bit of gas and make the bus with five minutes to spare. :-)

A great tour in really impressive terrain. We definitely have to go back and do the "Schnürl" route. :-) 

Long weekend in Kandersteg

The idea here was to spend a few days doing multi-pitch climbs around Kandersteg. The first day we headed to Ueschinen and bailed on the first route we tried due to the amount of grass in the route. G didn't want another two weeks of allergy problems. We realized that this was pretty likely to be a problem for anything we tried in the area, so it became a hiking weekend.

Sunday: the thought was to head up to the Golitschepass and then over the First before heading back down to Kandersteg. This fell victim to G's unwillingness to deal with snow: after the pass there was a good-sized snow field. We knew this was possible and had poles and were wearing approach shoes, but the steepness of the snow combined with the uncertainty of whether or not worse was still to come was too much.

So we continued on hiking down, down, and then up, up to the Elsighorn (food break), then down through the crowds to the restaurant and gondola station at Esligenalp. From there we followed the red-white trail under some really nice looking (but steep!) climbing routes and then down, down, down to Frutigen, where get the train back to Kandersteg.

Monday:

Up, up and through the lovely Ueschenental. Then up, up to the ridge at the end of the Gällihore. There we have a food break and opt to skip the last bit to the peak. Down, down, under the really nice looking face (definitely need to do some of the multi-pitches here!), past the climbing hut, down down (cooling along the way by scooping up snowballs and carrying them with us) until we get to town. There we pick our stuff up from the hotel and then head back home.

We definitely need to go back in the fall and do some of the planned climbs without the risk of allergies.

Not really a long weekend in the Mythen

 The plan was to take advantage of the good weather and long weekend to have some fun around the Mythen, so we booked a couple of nights at Holzegg and headed out on Friday morning.

Friday: trains and bus to Brunni, chair lift up to Holzegg, drop off the extra bag and then head to the Adlerspitzli. The route is now marked (or maybe it was marked before and it's now better marked?), so it's pretty easy to find. This is, as always, a fun climb. Up top we eat, then follow the Ruchband until we get to the beginning of the Wysswaendli. Here we put the ropes back on and follow that route. The very first bit of this (across the slab) is a bit sketchy, but it's otherwise technically easy and super fun. Requires a bit of route finding and has some fairly long run-outs (again, technically easy, so ok). Up on the Mythenmatt we pack the rope away and then follow the trail up, and around to the Rotgraetli. This is easy fun scrambling with awesome views and lets us out right in the crowds at the top of the Gross Mythen. 

Another food break and then we head down to the hotel. The way down still has some snow in it, but there are plenty of steps kicked in that since loads of people are heading up and down each day.

After dinner we do a quick hike up to the Furggelenstock to enjoy the sunset and the great views. We had hoped to also see the moon rise, but that happened too late for us.

Saturday: G woke up with what was clearly about to be a bad case of his grass allergy. He did at least some of the climbing on Friday with gardening gloves on, but those had to come off in order to do anything real with the rope and he clearly ended up in contact with plenty of grass. There was also a lesson learned here about the rope picking up whatever oils cause the allergy (he had rash on his neck from where the rope sat when took up coils and a bunch on the palms of his hands from handling the rope). So after a morning long run and breakfast together, G took the train back home so he could at least suffer at home. A did a day hike and then came back too.

G needs a different plan for how to protect himself from the grass, and we need to go back so that we can play more in the Mythen.

Seewen to Aarth-Goldau via the Zuenggelenflue

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Oensingen->Olten via Ravellen and Roggenflue SW-Kamin

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Glamaig and the northern Red Hills circuit

 based on Glamaig and the northern Red Hills circuit (Walkhighlands)

Ascent to The Storr

 based on The Storr - ascent (Walkhighlands)

Talisker Bay to Biod Ruadh & Preshal Beg

 based on Preshal Beg & More with Biod Ruadh, Talisker (Walkhighlands)

La Roche St-Jean climb and scramble

Dos d'Ane climb and scramble

Gerstelgrat

Wasserflue East ridge

 It's been eight years since we last did the East ridge of the Wasserflue; today it was time to go back. :-)

We took the bus to Fischbach (more direct than getting off at Benkerjoch Passhoehe) and the follow the trail very briefly before turning right at the first sign of a stream (G was actually suggesting it may not be the right place to turn, but then the guy behind us went up that way, so that made it clear) and following a very slight use trail up towards the ridge. The use trail gets more obvious the further we go and eventually blue markings show up. Once on the ridge there's no way to do anything wrong. ;-)

Up up we go until we get to the scrambling bits. This is apparently now a Klettersteig, so there's a cable the whole way, much of it pretty new. That's suboptimal today, but could be useful in bad conditions (today it's a bit muddy, but not too bad) or with people with less experience. Some fun scrambling and then we are, all to quickly, up top. Break to have a snack and enjoy the views, and then we follow the ridge towards the Geissflue. 

The ridge is a fun walk and would be a very nice flowy one to run (keep this in mind for later). Onwards we go, past Saalhoehe, onward and onward until we get to the Geissflue. The bench is free, so we have lunch and enjoy the views out to the North. It's a short bit down to the Schafmatt (we had our lunch outside here back in December) and then onwards further to wrap things up in Gelterkinden.

Really nice to be outside and moving. And the scrambling bits could have been a lot longer. :-)

Map and stats to come

Three scrambling ridges to the Rigi Hochflue

 Plenty of sun and warm in the forecast, so off we went to do some hiking and scrambling. We've done the Rigi Hochflue a few times, both scrambling and climbing, but we've never combined the scramble with the logical addition of the Buetzli and Stockflue. Today was the day for that.

Start in Brunnen and head up, up out of town to Kraehen. Up, up a bit more, then on the blue-white path (well marked, easy to follow) towards the Buetzli and Stockflue. Once we get in the sun it's nice and warm, T-shirt weather. Up, up we go in the sun with things getting progressively steeper and a bit scrambly until we hit the Buetzli. Here a quick break to enjoy the views and sun and then further along the path. The route down has a cable which we're actually grateful for, then more up, up through the woods, with a bit of scrambling until we get to the small hut below the Stockflue. Here we leave the path and follow the logical scrambling line which takes us to the top (this is nicely described in the SAC Tourenportal). Up top we are alone and get the bench, where we have a nice food break and enjoy the spectacular views. 

After a good break we continue along the blue-white path towards the top of the gondola at Timpel, but we stay on the path towards Egg and the Hochflue. Up top here, particularly on the North side, there some snow, but the going is still easy. We can see the route up the Hochflue, including what looks like a traverse of some steep snow. g is skeptical about that (and we stupidly don't have the ice axes with us), but we continue along the ridge and up, up to check it out. Leave the red-white trail for the blue-white, up up, to the ridge itself, then along the ridge for a bit towards the big snow field. As we're almost there we catch up to another hiker on his own. As the snow amount increases g gets more and more skeptical, but A encourages us to continue as long as we can. When the guy in front of us heads into the snow it's clear that after a few not-so-great steps there are really good, deep, solid tracks to follow up, so we continue. Up, up through the cement-hard snow (you can actually use the ice axe holes from whoever first did this as hand holds!), up, up until we get back to the rock. A steep bit with rock and snow and a bit of ice, but also with a cable and some steps to make it safe, and we're on the final ridge. Here along the ridge, still in snow for a bit. Quick food break in the sun and then the last few minutes to the peak. Good second lunch in the sun at the cross, again with amazing views, and then we take the route down the south face. This is pretty straightforward despite a bit of snow at the top and plenty of mud throughout, but we make it down to Ochsenboden without trouble.

Here we decide to take another new line and follow the path that traverses and descends back to Brunnen. This turns out to be a really nice, not frequently used trail, with great views all along and some interesting steep bits through the woods. We make it back to Brunnen in time to get a yogurt drink before starting the trip back home.

Really nice scrambling day in spring-like conditions, despite the fact that it's January. It's amazing that we haven't done the Buetzi and Stockflue before... they were super fun and I'm sure we'll be back and do them again!

Track and stats to come.

Scrambling on the Brüggler and the Chöpfler

A hike to take advantage of late-season warm weather.

Train to Ziegelbrücke, quick hike to the gondola station in Niederurnen, gondola up to Morgenholz and then we start hiking. Gently up the valley, then turning and doing more real up, up, up on a good red-white path to the Wanifurggel. Food break in the pass, and then following the blue-white path along the ridge.

The first bit of this is easy following the ridge, just under the cliff. Then down, down along a bit of muddy terrain through the woods until we get to the climbing routes, then right and up, up, along the nicely routed trail that takes us back to the ridge, including some good scrambling (note: wear a helmet here if there are others underway). Once on the ridge a mix of hiking and scrambling, always following the makred path, on good rock, until we get to the peak. This trail maybe has too many chains and other helpers on it, but I imagine that they are nice if people are doing a foot descent after topping out the climbing, and it's nice to have the chain available, just in case, on the one quite exposed 5m scrambling bit just before the top. Nice food break with views and pictures (a large group of younger hikers shows up from the other direction when we're almost done, but they luckily aren't super loud), and then we continue along the ridge.

The first bit is easily down through not-so-steep grass, and then at the next saddle we follow the use trail which leads us towards the Chöpfler. This one is not marked and doesn't have chains, but the rock is good, it's generally not super exposed, the route finding is easy, and it's just super scrambling and hiking. Just before the peak we hit a blue-white trail coming up from the left (we'll take this down). We scramble the last bit to the peak (instead of taking the easier trail), have a short picture break (it's gotten quite windy), and then head back down the trail. This takes a nice route down through the cliff face, past some nice limestone formations, down, down. Towards the bottom a Rega helicopter flies slowly by, it looks like they're looking for someone. We take a quick snack break and watch what is either a very realistic drill or an actual rescue (though who knows what people were doing to the west of us) before continuing down, down into the valley.

We opt to head down the valley towards Niederurnen (instead of through the saddle and down to Innerthal) and follow a nice red-white trail to Lochegg, where we start our way down, down, towards town The last few km of this are, unfortunately, on road (some quite steep road), but we make good time and manage to get to the bus stop 2 minutes before the bus arrives to start us on the trip back to Basel.

Track:

Stats: 18.6km, 6:55, 1300m up and 1700m down. The track includes a straight line which is the gondola ride up, this is not included in the stats.

Climbing around the Cabane d'Orny

We had planned a four day mini-vacation at the Cabane d'Orny to enjoy some alpine climbing on granite (and do some more tours from Dani's new book).

Saturday: long train ride down to Orsieres and a hotel night

Sunday

First bus up to Champex, the lift to La Breya, and then the hike up, up, up to the hut. It's a beautiful sunny day, but it's really warm and the packs are heavy, so we don't enjoy this nearly as much as we should. After dropping extra stuff at the hut (loads of people around!) we head up to the klettergarten to do our first tour: the Aiguilles d'Arpette south ridge. 

Rather than hiking through the klettergarten, we opt to start with a pitch of actual climbing. After some looking around to find the route we choose XXX, which is 5a according to Plaisir West (the topo in the hut says 5b). Since the rest of the ridge is scrambling/very easy climbing, we decide to challenge ourselves and do this in the mountaineering boots. The route has a step in it which is, at least at the moment, quite burly to do, but G makes it over in lead and A follows. Aside from that step it's easy climbing on good rock. At the top we shorten the rope, find the use trail which we start us on the rest of ridgem, and then start to head up the ridge. G pretty quickly ends up feeling lightheaded (probably the heat+altitude), so we bail and head back to the hut. After checking in, we rest/nap for an hour or so and then head back up to the klettergarten to do a bit of climbing (with rock shoes this time) before dinner.

There are ~10 of us in the hut, so dinner (pretty good) is nice and quiet. After dinner it's off to bed for an early(ish) start the next day.

Monday

Breakfast at 6, on our way by 7. The plan today is to climb the Aiguilles d'Orny (a lovely and prominent rock spire, labelled Aiguilles Tourelle on the map) via the "Classique Sud" (along the SW ridge). We follow the trail towards the Cabane de Trient for a while and then follow a clear(ish) use trail up towards the foot of the Aiguilles d'Orny. The German couple we had dinner with are ahead of us (they left before us), taking a slightly path up and are doing a different route. The start of the route is easy to find since we have a picture and there are some faint markers. 

We put on the gear and then start our way up. The pitches, according to Dani, are 3c, 4c, 3c, 4b, 3c, 3c, 4b, 4b/5a. A starts. The climbing is really nice. Mostly good rock, a decent number of bolts and/or places to self-protect, and relatively easy route finding. Also excellent views which get steadily better as we make our way up. We do a quick food break between the 5th and 6th pitch. The climbing in boots at these grades on this rock is no problem and we are pretty efficient with everything. Since everything is going well, we opt for the 5a variant of the last pitch (the only difference is the beginning, with a couple of moves up a chimmney and then around the corner to join the 4b version... this goes without a problem) and are on the peak all too soon. G has the peak to himself for about a minute before the lead of the French team who we had seen arrive a bit later arrive along the route La Mosquette (the last pitch of this ends at the abseil stand). While A is on her way up, the lead German arrives on the other peak, so there are eventually 6 of us up there enjoying the views. Total climbing time for us was 3:10, including the break (Dani says 3). We do another quick food break while getting ready to abseil and then follow the French team down. 

The descent is along an easy-to-follow use trail with some cairns through the rocky bits and it leads us down, down, down to the trail between the two huts. Another break to eat something and pack away the last of the gear and then we head back to the hut.

After a nice break we still have a few hours before dinner, so we decide to go back up and finish the Aiguilles d'Arpette. This time we take the hiking/scrambling route through the klettergarten, and follow the use trail up into the scrambling bit. We do the scrambling with the rope on (~12m between us), but don't end up pitching anything other than the steep (but easy) bit up to the "Kanzel". A actually goes up the couple of meters to the Vorgipfel, but G skips that. Now some downclimbing, between the two towers, over the next bit, and then down to the saddle below the wall to the peak. We have some time pressure and A isn't feeling super motivated, so we skip the last three pitches of climbing and opt to leave the gear in the saddle and take the walking/scrambing route to the peak. A bit of view enjoyment here then back to the saddle. There we pack up the gear and head down through the loose couloir and then follow a use trail/cairn markings back past the side of the klettergarten and onto the trail back to the hut.

There are a few more people in the hut tonight (thanks to a big group of newbies there with a guide), but it's still <20 and reasonably quiet.

Tuesday

Breakfast at 6, on our way by 7. The forecast is questionable, so we want to be efficient and flexible. The plan is to do the SW ridge and then S face of the Aiguille de la Cabane (the route name is Voie bon Accueil), because we can break that one off in the middle if the weather changes. We'd seen the line on the hike up to the hut and it is really appealing. The approach is easy, along a path with plenty of stone men, and takes about 20 minutes to get to the bottom of the route. There we put on the gear (including the climbing shoes this time... the first pitch is 5b). The pitches are, according to Dani, 5b, 4c, 4a, 4a, 4b, 4b. The first one, which A starts, has a couple of trickier bits (the 5b parts) on the face to get us up to the SW ridge, which we then follow for the next three pitches. A short walk past the saddle which we will later return to and which leads to the descent route (steep, ugly looking couloir) and then along the descent route from the Aiguille du Glacier Rond takes us to the foot of the S face. Here two really nice pitches lead us up to a stand just below the peak, with an abseil point just around the corner. Total climbing time 2:30. The weather is starting to look dodgy, so we quickly rig the abseil and drop down the 15m to the beginning of the descent route. We do a quick food break while packing away most of the gear and changing our shoes and then start following the cairns for the descent as it starts to sprinkle. The cairns lead us back the saddle and from there we follow the obvious trail down the couloir. As always: it's not nearly as bad as it looked from above. Not too long afterwards we're back at the start of the route where we pack away the last of the gear and then head back to the hut. The gentle rain stops along the way, but since the forecast for the evening isn't good and for Wednesday it's even worse, we decide to head back down. After a nice lunch of soup and wienerli we say goodbye to the hut warden and then make our way back down, down, down to the lift. Of course the sun comes out along the way. :-)

There's definitely tons more fun stuff to do around the Cabane d'Orny, so it would be at all bad to head back again.

Tracks from the whole thing:

Climbing above Engelberg

 It was a good weather weekend, so we headed off for a weekend of climbing.

Saturday we took the train to Engelberg, then the bus up the valley, then the gondola up to Fürenalp. From there we follow the blue-white path up, up to the Wissberg and the crags there.

The routes, grades from Plaisir Ost:

Sector B:

• Anouk (5b)
• Enja (5c)
• Tintin (5b)
• Cumulus (5c)
• Morgenröte (6a, we both cheated at the start on lead, but then managed it in toprop after figuring out the beta)

Sector C:

• Tante Ju (6a, A in toprope)
• Schnupfdösli (5c, A only)
• Wasserrinne (6a, G in toprope)

This was fun climbing on really nice limestone. Pretty varied, but with plenty of slab. Not at all crowded on a lovely Saturday: we see <10 other climbers all day.

After the climb we walked back down to the gondola and then took the bus back to Engelberg for the night.

Sunday we went back to Fürenalp, started on the Grotzliweg around the corner and then went cross-country, often on cow trails, climbing up, up towards the alp at Gummi. From here steeper up, up on gravel and steep grass until we hit the rock. Then some scrambling around to find the starts of the routes The description/photos in the Tourenportal aren't super helpful (and it's definitely not T2 like they say), but we do eventually find the start of our planned route: Last Minute.

The route is only three long pitches (5b, 5c, 5b), but it was loads of fun and great climbing. The second pitch had a scary bit at the bottom with moving across some steep water runnels that were actually wet compounded by a missing bolt in the middle and then compounded further because the bolt above that was super loose (G tightened it with his fingers). Then super fun climbing the rest of the way. The third pitch also had some missing bolts (unfortunately two in a row, fortunately that was in an easy section). We guess the missing bolts was due to nuts coming loose and falling off.

The abseiling was efficient.

G was initially worried about it being crowded, but there was no one else around all day.

Given the approach and the missing bolts, this one ended up bineg a bit of an adventure. :-)

The walk back was more or less the same way, then we grabbed the gondola (there was a line this time), the bus, and then the very crowded trains back home.

Hundsee Bivvy

We have an excellent weather forecast, so we opt for hiking from the Kiental to the Lauterbrunnental (this has been on our list for a while) with a bivvy along the way.

An early start on Saturday to do the train-train-bus to Griesalp (unsurprisingly there are loads of people out and about on this sunny August Saturday!). Then up, up, following the road to Obere Dürreberg. It's quite hot, so we're happy to find a shady place beside the stream for a nice food break (funny scene below us as some cows also cool off in the stream) and to pump a bit more water. Then it's up, up, steeply up, through the Hundsflüe on a good blue-white trail. It really is oppressively warm, and the packs are not light, so we take another break and short nap-with-a-view at around p2420 before continuing up, up  to Telli. Through the rock wasteland and past the first small lake, then on to the larger lake (p2677, there's already a group here who will obviously be staying the night). One possible plan here was to head up the ridge to the Hundshore, but neither of us is particularly enthusiastic about that, so we continue on to the saddle. Here we opt to improvise and take a more direct route down rather than staying on the blue-white path towards the Schilthorn and then down (we'll be heading up that tomorrow). The first bit of this is mostly ok, then it's a bit hairy near the first set of cliffs, then ok again as we head down, down, to rejoin the trail at Hundshubel. The next order of business is to find a place to bivvy, so we head up to the ridge above the (mostly dry) Hundsee and follow that towards the Horen until we find a nice location. Ditch the packs, pump some water from the Sefibach, then spend a lazy afternoon enjoying the amazing views and watching other groups show up and find places to camp (of course we aren't alone: the weather is great, the views are great, and there is a relatively short approach from the Schilthorn). The group on the other side of the lake, who have chosen to camp in an area easily accessed by cows, are a running source of entertainment. After a nice dinner we walk up to the Horen to enjoy some amazing sunset colors on the Jungfrau, Mönch, and Eiger.

Sunday morning we're awake early enough to enjoy the great sunrise and packed up and underway shortly before 8. Back to the Hundshubel, then following the nice trail up, up, to the pass at p2684, where we do a short food break. From there along the ridge to the saddle at p2798, and then steeply down into the Soustal. If there wasn't someting of a use trail, this is a descent we probably wouldn't have done; the first bit is pretty hairy and a lot of it is quite steep and on fairly loose terrain. With the use trail it's not too horrible. Down, down we go into the lovely valley, which we then follow more or less to the end. We do a lunch break and then, later, a bathing break along the way. At the end of the valley we take the trail through the woods which leads us to the gondola at Grütschalp which starts us on the long (crowded) trip home.

Track:

Stats:

• Saturday: 5:50, 12km, 1460m up, 540m down.
• Sunday: 6:07, 15km, 600m up, 1430m down

Ridges above the Cabane de Moiry

The weather forecast is decent and (after some effort) we manage to find free beds in a hut, so we took a long weekend around the 1st of August and went off to the mountains for a long weekend. We've got a very exciting new guidebook for alpine climbing (it's like Dani Silbernagel wrote this one for us :-), and that inspires our choice of the Cabane de Moiry as our base.

Since it takes forever to get to that part of Switzerland, we head down to Grimentz on Saturday (after a nice bouldering session in the morning) and get the first bus up to the Moiry glacier parking lot on Sunday morning. On with the packs and up the valley we go, enjoying the lovely views and the good (though definitely not empty) trail that takes us up, up to the hut. 70 minutes later we're at the hut, where drop off stuff we don't need for the day and then immediately head back out to do our first tour.

Sunday: Aiguilles de la Lé traverse

The first part of this one is finding our way up to the Col de Gardien. There is supposedly a yellow blazed path which leads up to the hut's small climbing crag, but we never end up finding that. Still, we know where we want to go, so we just take a logical route up, up across the talus. Past the crag we actually run across a few cairns that we follow the rest of the way up, up to the saddle. Here we have a quick food break and put on the climbing gear while enjoying the amazing views (particularly really nice view of the Weisshorn and friends on the other side of the valley) and watching a group do the first part of the ridge. After the break we start our way along the ridge.

The first bit of ridge takes us easily, with some light scrambling, up to the south peak of the Aiguilles de la Lé (p3158). On the way up we pass the other group (five guests and a guide) on their way back to the col. The ridge continues, descending, until we get to the Col des Aiguilles. We're not super efficient on this first part: we've got a bit too much rope out and it takes a while to get into the flow of where and how to keep ourselves safe while still making progress. From the col the ridge heads steeply up. The next bit is more climby, so we let out the rope and do a couple of easy pitches before taking up coils again and shortening the rope to have about 15m between us and moving on. The ridge is now narrower, more exposed, and more scrambly. It's super fun. Along the way we end up with a cloud coming up from the E side which makes for dramatic pictures but robs us of the long view along the ridge. According to our topo, we're supposed to leave the ridge after the N peak (the SAC description continues along the ridge to the next saddle, but our book says that the last piece is dangerous), and at some point we figure that we've past the peak and are approaching the yellow tower which marks the descent to the next pass. So we head back to the peak we've just passed and take a food break while looking around for the descent, which isn't obvious (even though it's supposed to be). Meanwhile another team of two catches up to us. After looking at the map we decide that we aren't on the actual peak yet and continue along the ridge. More fun ridge scrambling (yay!) and then the actual peak (including a sad cross) comes into view. We do the last bit up, take some pics from the narrow peak, and then head down to the W "ridge", which is obvious at this point. The other two opt to follow us down instead of continuing along the ridge. The descent is steep, but not hard and it's pretty easy to follow a mix of cairns and use trail down, down to a small saddle where we leave the ridge to the N. More scrambling and descending and we end up on a big talus field with the final descent couloirs in view. Down, down we go across the talus to a nice green nob where we have a quick food break and pack the climbing gear away. We realize that we've come down to the wrong couloir, so after the break we head back up 50m or so and traverse to the correct couloir. This is an easy steep descent and we're back down on a more normal slope in no time. Across the grass to the path to the hut we followed earlier in the day and then up, up to the hut. Dinner, some view admiring, and then we're off to bed.

We were a lot more efficient on the second part of the ridge. We had a bit less rope out (maybe 12m) and focused on placing slings or cams to try and ensure that there was always one piece of protection between us instead of always using rock spikes and really minimizing the amount of time with both of us on the same side of the ridge (we still did some of that, but tried to keep moving as much of the time as possible).

Track:

Stats: 6:40, 7.8km, ~1030m up and down

Monday: Couronne de Breonna traverse

We're underway at 7:15 after a good breakfast. Today we're both a bit nervous about the approach to the planned route since it's not obvious how straightforward it's going to be to get off the (easy) glacier or to manage the last steep bit up to the Col de la Couronne. We follow the marked path down to the glacier, put on the crampons, cross the dry glacier (we come off near a big cairn with a pole sticking out of it), stash the crampons and ice axes under a rock, and then follow the clear use trail easily up to the top of the moraine. A bit along the moraine and then another (less clear) use trail takes us off to the left and up, up towards tht col. We end up being able to follow this more or less all the way to the top (we lose the trail in the talus fields, but it's always possible to find it again).

At the col we have a quick snack, enjoy the views, put on the gear, and start the climb. Another team shows up as we're leaving, but they end up being considerably slower than us. We start with two pitches for the first steep bit and then use the same efficient ridge technique as on Sunday to do last bit up to the Clocher de la Couronne. We find the abseil anchor, do the 5 abseils down to the saddle, and then continue along the main ridge. This has six towers, some of which we go over and some we go around, the topo is good and there's almost always a use trail indicating the right direction. Plenty of scrambling fun on the ridge with a bit of easy climbing mixed in. We do another food break and enjoy the views before the last steep bit of climbing (there's even an actual bolt in this part... crazy!) and then at some point we reach the peak. This isn't totally obvious on the ridge, but that's not so important anyway... we're just continuing along the ridge and down to the Col de Breonna. :-)

There are apparently one or two places where you can abseil, but we end up just downclimbing everything and have more fun scrambling the rest of the way along the ridge and to the col. Another food break, pack away the gear, plan our strategy for heading back down, and then off we go. We take a distance-efficient route back down to the blue-white path which will lead us to our gear... this is a nice walk, but it probably would have been more time-efficient to head more or less directly along the use trail to the blue-white path. Anyway... once on the trail we follow it along the moraine. There are a surprising number of day trippers on this trail; likely they are all just taking advantage of the relatively easy apporach to get close to a glacier. Back at our gear we put on the crampons, re-cross the glacier (now there's a group doing crevasse rescue practice), pack everything away on the other side, and then head up up to the hut.

Back at the hut we have some cake and spend a relaxed afternoon enjoying the nice weather, views, and chaos on the terrace. Dinner, more views, and off to bed.

This was another really good day of climbing and scrambling. It felt like we were pretty efficient for most of the day and didn't spend too much time messing around with the gear or doing unnecessary pitches.

Track:

Stats: 8:35, 10.8km, ~1200m up and down

Tuesday: Zinal via the Col du Pigne

The weather forecast is a bit dodgy, so we aren't clear what we're going to do until after we've had breakfast and checked the radar. Things look stable enough to take the more interesting route, so after packing up all our stuff we follow the blue-white path up up to the Col du Pigne. It's only a short bit along the ridge to get to the Pigne de la Le from here, but we opt to skip that and just head down the other side towards Zermatt. The first bit of the descent is in terrain where it's nice to have the trail there (steep, not great footing) but then things flatten out a bit and the walking gets easy. Great views of the other side of the Aiguilles de la Le and what would be great views across the valley except for the low clouds. Down, down we head, with a very small amount of rain and hail along the way. Down in the green we pass a couple of groups heading up towards the hut. We go past a big group of ibexes just hanging out and chilling in a group of rocks (boy do they not care about us being there!). Down, down we go until hitting the red-white path which takes us the rest of the way down to the valley floor. There are tons of people down here! The last bit is flat along a trail/road next to the river until we get to the edge of Zinal. Here we head to the bus stop and start the long trip back to Basel.

Stats: 3:50, 10.6km, 360m up, ~1500m down

Track from the whole trip:

Norway day 12: Blånebba traverse

The forecast is for it to be nice in the morning and then rain in the afternoon, so we get an early start.

The plan is to head back up into Venjesdalen, head up to the ridge at the Litlefjellet (near where we went up to the ridge on the Romsdalhorn tour) and then head North along the ridge to traverse the Holstind and the Blånebba. David (our guide from last week) has recommended the Blånebba ridge scramble and we have descriptions of the whole thing. So off we go.

We park at the lot where the bus stops and then quickly walk the 4km up the road to get to the trail which leads up to the Litlefjellet. Follow the trail up the side of the valley to the ridge and change shoes (we've been wearing trail runners and now change into the big boots for the later scrambling) and enjoy the views. The first bit of ridge is easy, with a good use trail taking us past a few of nice camping spots, some of which are occupied. Eventually the use trail kind of peters out, so we just follow the logical line along the ridge to where the ridge narrows down and things start to get steep. Here we pick the use trail back up. It's 1:50 to this point. After a quick snack, we start our way up.

The scrambling up to the Holstind is route-finding intensive (lots of reading the terrain to figure out where to go next) and with some bad rock quality moments (also some good rock quality moments!), but quite fun. It's just a joy to move in this kind of terrain. Once we get up top we stop to enjoy the views, eat some more, and check out the wall of the Blånebba looming ahead.

A use trail (it's back again!) leads us along the ridge, with a bit of down-climbing, to the face of Blånebba. Here the rock quality is a lot better, the route finding is pretty straightforward, and there are some really good moments of exposure. Pure ridge fun. It's over all too soon. Total time on the ridges, including the food break, was 2:20.

We enjoy the views for a bit and then head over to the main peak (this is easily done purely on rock... when we were there last week there was a bunch of snow here, so we've carried the ice axes with us for basically nothing) and follow the broad ridge to the trail which leads back down to the parking lot. Now we also start seeing other people again; we haven't seen anyone else since the the folks camping around the Litlefjellet.

The trail down to the car is easy (we've done it before in the other direction) and enjoyable. We don't push the pace, do another food break along the way, and just enjoy the landscape and nice weather until we're back at the car.

Stats: 6:30, 13.8km, 1170m up and down.