Climbing, Switzerland, 1-3 September 2006

Posted: September 5, 2006 in Climbing

01/09/06, Sandbalm, Goschenen

People: Beat Schwegler, Nadia Spilordo and I
Weather: Warm, mid-late 20s
 
Route
Bijou, Overall 6b (French), 6 pitches: 5c, 5c+, 6a-, 6a-, 6a-, 6b. Altitude: 1490m, Length: 240m.
My first friction climb on granite and my first multi pitch route. Beat lead, Nadia and I followed. I really enjoyed the climb, quickly learnt a whole new level of trust in my feet and discovered you can climb something with at first glance has almost no holds. The top pitch was really tough and took me a few minutes to string the first couple of moves together.
 
3 Photos of Sandbalm below.
 
Telli
People and weather as above
 
Via Gloria, 6a (French)
Beat lead, I followed. A tough and steep route, but great view and setting.
 
Lochliwag, 6a+ (French)
Beat lead, I followed. Another steep route, ran out of energy and had to rest. Great climb.
 
New Route (yet to be named and graded)
A tough route at the far left by the fallen tree. Pumpy towards the top. Beat lead.
 
02/09/06, Frutt
People: As above
Weather: overcast, as the photos show with occasional spots of rain. Mid to late teens.
 
Routes
Alpabfahrt, 6a (French)
Beat lead, I followed. Damn steep but with real positive holds. Brilliant climb. The last but one move was scary as you have to unclip the last quickdraw and the reach across right. A fall would result in a nice pendulum! I bottled it and had to re-clip to rest, then down climbed and did it direct rather than traverse: took more energy but I didn’t feel like I was going to get hurt if I slipped.
 
Boniwag, 6b (French)
I didn’t want to climb Boniwag at all as my arms were aching nicely after the day before and Alpabfahrt, the thought of a 6b just wasn’t that appealing. But when Beat nagged me about how good the route was, and that grade was 5c until the last 5m, so I relented and climbed the 5c part (wimp eh?). Beat was right – another brilliant climb. Beat lead, I top roped. Nadia climbed it to the top.
 
Two photos of Nadia on Boniwag below.
 
Steichuiz, 6a
Wet and grassy: I didn’t climb it.
 
Heiwrächä, 6a
Quite a tough start followed by a nice climb which wasn’t as steep as the others.
 
Adventure Factory, 5c+
A good climb which went easy at the grade, although we think we went off route.
 
Three photos of me on Adventure Factory below.
 
03/09/06, Schollenen
People: Beat Schwegler and I
Weather: cloudy, low-mid 20s
 
Route
Diagonale, Overall 6a (French), 7 pitches: 4a, 4c, 5c+, 6a, 4b, 5a, 5c+, 5c. Altitude: 1300m, Length: 330m
This was brilliant. Easy first couple of pitches leading to a few pitches of sustained crack climbing. We climbed the first three pitches really quickly to ensure we didn’t run out of time (we didn’t leave from Luzern until 1330). Then we relaxed a bit, and I concentrated on technique – using foot holds and standing up rather than pulling up. Some pitches were a bit wet, one had water running down the crack. Beat lead, I followed. Whole route was climbed in 90 mins! Awesome.
 
Wadlichlimser, Overall 6a (French), 8 pitches but we only did the first two as it was late: 5c+, 6b (guide is wrong stating 5c+)
Saw this as we abbed down from Diagonale and decided we had time for the first couple of pitches. Another brilliant route, starts relatively easily then a tough bit on the start of the 2nd pitch due to one or two moves. Arms were killing me after all the exertion - even belaying Beat was difficult :-)
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