Clean climbing in Grandval

Good weather forecast for today but rain tomorrow, and G is recovering from his second round of Covid, so we plan a day trip in the Jura. "Jura Keep Wild" has a few interesting sounding clean climbs above Grandval (we did a clean multi-pitch near here a few years ago) and we end up picking Cafe Dancing since the topo says that it has a blue dot at the beginning (always good to be able to find the route!). ;-) Well, that and the fact that it's been recommended by one of the PhD students in G's group.

Train to Grandval, an easy approach, and then we're at the foot of the route. The blue dot helps. We probably would have picked the same start, but it's nice to be sure that we're at least starting on the right route. We put on all the gear and then start the climbing.

G does the first pitch. It's easy climbing, lots of care required due to loose rock, reasonably opportunities to set protection (though it's easy and not so steep, so lots of protection isn't necessary), and there's a good tree for the belay (the second big tree... the area under the first one was full of big loose rocks). It looks like we can go either up a bit to the right or a bit to the left, on the topo the line looks straight... A starts off to the right towards a piton+carabiner in a steep slabby bit. There's another piton along the way, but once she gets over to the second piton it becomes clear that the climbing is significantly harder than the 5a it's supposed to be. So she leaves a clip carabiner there, comes back to the belay, and then heads up a bit to the left. Here the climbing is easier. A short bit of climbing with decent placements, then a long traverse to the right through trees on loose gravel (of course) before setting a belay on a tree. Once again it's not immediately obvious from the topo where the route goes, but we know that we need to get up to some kind of ridge/shoulder and just heading straight up from where we are looks manageable and easy to protect, so G does that. 

This is a nice pitch, there's some actual (easy) climbing, plenty of spots to place gear (including a good hole for the big blue cam!), and there's even some decent rock along the way. The belay is, once again, a tree. A leads the next pitch, which once again has some climbing on decent rock (after the first bit, which is just awful) and good protection. Another tree belay at the foot of a rocky rib. It seems obvious to along this, but after a couple meters the left side is more inviting, so G heads around the side and realizes that the rib ends in a spike. So he continues around the left, basically walking, to a tree and A comes up. It's a very short walk to the foot of the next bit of rock, which looks like it leads to the top, so A belays from the tree where we are and G does the last pitch. This again has decent rock quality and protection is easy. There's a tree belay a meter or so below the very top. A comes up and we're done.

Climbing time: 3:15. We're generally a lot faster on bolted routes, but between looking for spots to set protection and the route finding, today was slow. No big deal... we had all day.

After a lunch break enjoying the views from the top, we pack up the gear and follow the climbers' trail down to the marked path which takes us back towards Grandval. We've got 45 minutes before the next train, so we just walk the rest of the way to Moutier. It's a nice walk and we get there in time to buy a yogurt drink before the train to Basel arrives.

This was a good day. This kind of climbing, where it's not completely clear where the route runs, definitely has an element of adventure to it that adds to the fun.

Notes for future planning:

• Given the amount of loose rock, including some big stuff, it wouldn't be a good idea to do something like this above (or really close to) other climbers. We did end up knocking one big rock loose that would have been very bad  for anyone under us.
• It's nice to have loads of trees around to use as belays
• If we did get stuck in terrain like this, abseiling down over the route is really not an option. There's so much loose rock that abseiling would have been dangerous
• For G this was mentally easy (despite the uncertainty about route) because the climbing was all easy, there was basically no chance to end up "stuck" (the topo made it clear that we just needed to head to a ridge and then take that to the peak), and we could at almost any point have traversed over to the bolted route if things got to be too much.

Aside: La Ballade, the bolted multi-pitch to the left, looks quite good and is really popular: we saw at least four teams underway on the route. It can also be done clean; it likely has a lot less loose rock, but the adventure bits would be missing.

Gourmet lunchtime hike

 track and text to come

Corona Triangle

Thanks to the ongoing COVID19 situation, we couldn't do our normal climbing in Locarno thing for the Easter weekend, so Andrea came up with a lovely three day hike with two bivvys.

Day one we followed the border with France (now closed), taking Andrea's super efficient route through Basel and up onto the hill above Allschwil, through Biel-Benken to Flüh (most recently done on our full moon hike), nice break on the bench on the ridge there, and then into territory we haven't done before. 

Up onto the ridge north of Mariastein, continuing along the border, again picking up a piece of the trail from the full moon hike between Rodersdorf and Burg - another nice break on the bench above Metzerlen we stopped at on that trip, through  Burg and back up onto the ridge with nice views into Alsace, continuing on a really nice stretch along the drop off, a longer lunch and rest break just past Remelspitz with its little tower, onwards always following the border to the Roti Flue and then descending, past the cave (not as cool as we had hoped) to meet the Lützel at Klösterli.

A bit of a strategy discussion here since we're a bit earlier than we thought we'd be, but we opt to pump some water here and have an early dinner in a nice field beside the Lützel. After a more than decent meal of pulled pork and rice (surprisingly good!) we continue along the trail towards Kleinlützel, picking up a bit of greg's running route from Delemont to Basel. In Kleinlützel we look for a fountain to get water for the evening and next morning, end up finding one that's not officially drinking water, then dumping that out when we later discover another one near the graveyard. Up, up
the hill to the pass towards Liesberg, then off to the right until we find a nice spot for our bivvy.

Hang out for a bit enjoying the views until the sun goes down, then set up the bivvy bags and retire for the night. It's nice a quiet, but the mostly full moon is like a spotlight, so there aren't really any stars.

Day two we are awake at around 6. After leisurely hot beverages and müsli (fine rolled oats with powdered milk, ground almonds, raisins, and minced dried mango) we pack up and leave by 7:40. Down, down we go, through Liesberg Dorf to Liesberg Station in the dark and cold valley, inefficient zig-zag across the river and then up through the woods, across some lovely fields to Oberwiler, where we fill a water bottle at the spring, then down out of town.

We do a quick food break just sitting on the path before losing the sun, then continue to the valley bottom, across the stream, and start back up the other side. Steeply up to the Mätteberg, past the nice viewpoint at the end (people already there) until we find a good spot to sit, have a warm beverages break (Z'nuni!) and enjoy the views. Onwards along the ridge to the end, some discussion about what/how to do the traverse of the Baflue (unfortunately the hikr admins have shut down access to trip reports, so though we know that there's a T4 route along the ridge, we can't read any descriptions of it), and then we start up along the obvious trail. This steepens and becomes like a pretty typical climbing traverse (less-used paths leaving along the way, there's probably climbing on the Baflue), but it leads us easily to a saddle on the ridge. Clear traces leads us up along the ridge a bit until we get to a point where it's not clear whether we should continue along the ridge (clear traces there) or head around the rocks to the left (also clear traces there). We opt to try the "straight ahead" approach and scramble to a high-point (always making sure that whatever we can do is down-scrambleable). The way forward from here doesn't look good, so we scramble back to the fork and take the route around the rock.

This is steep and covered in plenty of leaves, but easy enough. Eventually we end up back on the ridge, cross to the other side, through a little tunnel, and then a break on the other side. Note to ourselves: once things normalize it might be worth investigating whether or not there's a good traverse across the top of that bit of ridge, it's not super long, but looks like it could be fun. Onward along the ridge, and then down, down to the edge of Büsserach before starting up towards the Burgruine Neu Thierstein and then steeply up onto the ridge. This is a really nice (and popular!) trail along the long ridge.

Nice break with views along the way (it's hot!), and then down into Meltingen. Here we pump some water at the fountain (sign there that it's not drinking water), cool our hands and faces, and then head gently up out of town, around Zullwil, and then onwards towards the Burgruine Gilgenberg (we walked past this years ago). Instead of taking a path up to the Portiflue and the ridge there, we continue further up the valley (greg has had enough sun for the moment) until we get to a couple picnic tables at Chalberweidli. Here we do our dinner break (reindeer stew, which isn't much in the way of texture, but tasted quite nice), including a nice foot wash in the stream. Then up through the gorge with the Ibachfälle (really, really nice trail!) and onwards through the forest to Nunningenberg (way too many cars here!), contouring through the fields, and then up to the saddle with the road down to Nunningen. We check out the potential bivvy spot a bit further along from here and decide it's good. Some time enjoying the last of the sun and views (including the Hirnichopf and another ridge or two from our hike a couple weekends ago) from the bench down on the road. When the sun goes down we set up the bivvy bags and retire to watch the stars come out. Fun here to spot a cluster of Starlink satellites passing overhead.

Day three we are again awake around 6 and underway by 7:30 after hot beverages and müsli. We head back to the saddle and then follow the trail down to Nunningen. Here some quick shopping to get food for the day and then we head up out of town.

We've got a distance to cover today in order to get home, so the focus is more on efficiency (while staying on nice paths!) than doing ridges or heading over peaks like we would normally do. Past the horse farm at Dietel, then down through the woods and further along to Seewen (we really start to see cherry trees on this stretch) before heading up again towards Hochwald. We take the (unmarked but very popular) path through the woods that follows the edge, have a break along the way, head down a bit, and then re-climb to the lovely open Gempen plateau. Onward through the sun, skirting town, and then we descend to Stollenhäuser. Here the combination of the views, the cherry trees, and the dandelions in the fields is just out of control, so we have a nice break to appreciate them (this has changed so much from a few weeks ago).

Then onwards and downwards... it's the final push! Past Schönmatt and then along the familiar route down into Münchenstein.

We pick up a bit more water and cool our hands at the fountain where greg always grabs water on long runs, then through the upper bits of town (hot! sunny!) and up onto the hill of the Bruderholz. One last quick break in the shade, then along across the Bruderholz, past St Margarethen, into Basel, past the Schützenmattpark, a bit of weaving around to find a shop that's open and selling beer, and then finally home....

Overall track
Stats:

• Day 1: 33.4 km, 8:45 (+1:20 paused), 1370m up, 970m down
• Day 2: 28.1 km, 9:30 (+1:10 paused), 1490m up, 1250m down
• Day 3: 33.8 km, 8:40, 790m up, 1470m down

Full moon hike

It was almost full moon and the forecast was good, so on Friday evening we made the spontaneous decision to do a full moon hike.

Greg got up early to make hot beverages and porridge and we left the flat at 3am on Saturday under a bright, bright moon and the occasional thin cloud and set off towards Allschwil. It's insanely bright outside, with super sharp moon shadows. We start off along the Bachgraben and continue through Allschwil. We decide to go through Schönenbuch so that we get out into the open sooner, and enjoy the moon as we walk through the fields (this is one of g's normal running routes).

Back down the hill through the woods to rejoin the other running route, up the hill, and then through the fields along the broad top enjoying the views. We take a short break to eat a bit and have tea and coffee before heading into the woods. Through the woods, past a woman walking with two dogs who were not happy to see us - the only other person we really see on the whole hike - and then down, down into Biel-Benken. The really muddy bit down the hill is pretty dark and not-quite frozen, but we still manage without headlamps (fun!). Through Biel-Benken then up onto the broad ridge and along (in the open again, yeah!) until we get to Flüh. We had toyed with the idea of stopping at a bakery here, but end up not walking past one, so we skip that. Onwards up, up, past Mariastein and then to the start of the climb up to the Blauen. By now the moon is quite low in the sky and the eastern horizing is definitely starting to get light. Another very short break before starting this to eat some dried fruit and then up, up, along the trail. At some point towards the top we opt to just go cross country instead of switching onto the forest road and head up, up, through a snowy bramble, until we hit a road just under the ridge. Along this for a bit (we aren't 100% sure where we are relative to the Metzlerenchrüz at this point, but it doesn't really matter) and then we just head directly to the ridge again so that we can catch the sunrise (it's 7:30!). We follow the trail on the ridge a bit more towards the east until we find a perfect bench with a great view and a bit of table. Here we stop, have breakfast, and enjoy the sunrise while appreciating the views (we can even see the very top of what is likely the Alps on the horizon). Soooooooo good!

We don't really have anything more concrete planned for the hike, so it's all improv now. After breakfast we head back along the ridge, past the Metzlerenchrüz, and then continue along the ridge for a while before heading down to Challpass. Here we pick up another trail and head down, down into the valley. Through Burg (with its cool castle on a sharp ridge), and then along the trail through the woods along the border. Another food break when we find a good bench in the sun above Metzerlen, and then the last bit along the trail to Rodersdorf, where we get the tram back to Basel.

This was really fun and definitely something we should do again!

Some notes:
- We weren't moving slowly on this walk. The average pace, including breaks, was below 15min/km.
- Heading down the other side of the ridge from Metzlerenchrüz to Laufen would have allowed us to get back quicker.
- We talked about heading down towards Kleinlützel but opted not to do this because the timing to get a bus would have been tricky (they only go a few times a day).
- Continuing past Kleinlützel to Delemont (another nice route that g has run before) would add about another 8km to the overall distance - probably 38km in total - and would also be a nice way to finish. We'd see more early sun that way too.
- The route we did would also make a nice run. Could be extended to return to Basel (this ends up being around 45km)

Track:
Stats: 29.7km 1165m up, 1028m down

Hohgant Integrale

One of our long-standing "we should do that" items was to build an overnight into one of our hikes. Further push for this was added by greg reading the microadventures book, so we picked up a pair of bivvy bags last week and set out on Sunday to do a long hike followed by a bivvy and then a short walk to catch the first bus on Monday (the weather on Saturday was forecast to be crap, thus the odd timing).

We took the bus to Kemmeriboden (nice bus ride!) and then started hiking up the valley. The route follows the road (now mostly closed) for the first bit and then turns up the hill. At Hübeli we leave the marked route to take an unmarked (but quite clear) path up, up, up through the woods. We're taking it pretty slow today since we've got all day and the packs are a bit heavier than normal. We manage to miss the fork that would have led us up to the Birchegütsch and remain in the woods under the ridge for a bit longer than planned. The weather is lovely and the views of the Brienzergrat withe the Berner Oberland peeking out above it are great. Snack break with nice views in a clearing just under the Chemmeribodeflue. At some point along the way we come across a nice spring where we can cool down a bit and fill up the water bottles (there's a picture of this, so we should be able to find it on the map).

Just past the Brünneligrind we head up to the ridge itself at p1809. Now it's a lovely bit of ridge hiking, with a bit of light scrambling mixed in, following a trail that's generally clear, until we get to the step up to the Furggegütsch. This has a bit more light climbing, fairly exposed, and generally more ridge fun, until we get up to the peak itself. Here we see the first two other hikers of the day. We have a food break and enjoy the views before continuing on, following the other two hikers who are yodeling as they walk (which is very, very cool) down a bit to traverse under the ridge and then to a crossing. There's another spring near the crossing, so we fill the bottles again before continuing.

There's a trail that leads up to the Hohgant from here, but that is currently crossing a steep snowfield, and scrambling is more fun anyway, so we head steeply up to the saddle to the foot of the first of the three Bären. A bit more scrambling/light climbing gets us to the top of the first one and then it's more of the same (though a bit easier) to get across the other two and onto an easy ridge that leads us up to the broad, flat top of the Hohgant.

Here we're in a cloud, so there's not much to see and even figuring out exactly where we want to go isn't completely trivial (the downside of the broad, flat ridge!). With help of the phone we find our way to the path and continue, eventually coming out of the cloud. Around the Aff and then easily along the ridge to the Hohgant West (not named on the map, p2069). Now further on to p2062 and then we start our descent. Past through a field at around p2032 with great views that would be an excellent (though very open, and no water except melting snow) bivac location - two women are already there hanging out and waiting to pitch their tent. Onwards and downwards we go, down a step via some fun ladders in a couloir, and then up to the Trogehorn. Here we take an energy bar break and enjoy the views one last time before starting our way down, down down the end of the ridge. Above Arni, which is where plan to sleep, we hit a nice stream and fill our water bottles before descending the last bit to Arni.

The blue lines on the map here are not lying: this area is pretty swampy. There's some flat dry space around the hut, but unfortunately the sheep are up (they must have *just* been brought up), so that's out. We find a mostly flat and mostly dry spot under some trees that would likely work as a bivac location and go ahead and make and eat dinner (the beef stroganoff isn't too bad, particularly after adding chipotle powder to it!). During the dinner prep Andrea spots another possible spot a bit lower (at around p1475 on the map). Since we aren't super enthusiastic about where we are, we put on the packs and go check that out. This turns out not to be great, but from the trail leading there we have a good view into the valley and can see that the alp at the end of the valley (p1344) looks empty and has no cows around it. Bonus! Down we go, following the forest road until we get to the alp which is, happily, not yet occupied. There's a flat, mostly dry, spot with nice soft grass behind the hut where we set up our bivvy bags. A bit of a wash in the trough, some repacking to make sure everything is protected from the dew, and then we go to bed and fall asleep to the sound of the cowbells from down the valley.

We're both sleep surprisingly well (though are awake enough to appreciate how good the stars are!) and are up early. Greg needs the headlamp when starting at 4:30, but by 5:00 it's light enough to pack that away. We enjoy a couple cups of coffee/tea while getting everything packed to the sound of the cowbells. There's plenty of dew all over everything, but we stayed dry in the bivvy bags. As planned we are underway, with big smiles on our faces, by 5:30. The walk down the valley in the morning light is great and we are at the bus stop in Innereriz for the 6:30 bus with a few minutes to spare. The bus takes us to Thun, where we grab some breakfast and then get the train that takes us back to Basel. It's fun to be on a train full of commuters after having woken up under an open sky to the sound of cowbells. :-)

Note to our future selves: 2l of water is plenty for an evening + coffee and tea the next morning.

Track (missing the last bit of day 1, the obvious straight line connects the spot we had dinner to the spot below where we camped that my watch found the GPS):
Stats (day 1): 9:32, 16.9km, 1950m up, 1350m down
Stats (day 2): 0:57, 3.7km, 0m up, 288m down