Grand Capucin

With an amazing weather forecast for the weekend, Saule and I packed our bags to take a train all the way to Cham. Just before leaving, however, we got an offer from Franz and Frieder to join them in the car. Needless to say, we were looking forward to the banter with the boys and the roadtrip southwest ensued.

Rise and shine!

Grabbing the first midi lift on Saturday, F&F were fast enough to get first in line for the ultra-classic Rebuffat route on Midi and had heaps of fun there. Saule and I went further down along the Tacul face to reach the beautiful granite satellites. We chose the easiest way up the Grand Capucin (Swiss route with O Sole Mio finish), which meant climbing some old-school corners lower down, some splendid cracks mid-route and a few Piola'esque face moves in the top part. The sights combined with the excellent rock made for a great day.

We had more plans on Sunday, but were woken up by a hailstorm bashing our tents so we walked back up Midi and took a lift down to Cham for some climbing-shop-sightseeing and drove back to Zurisee to finish of the weekend with a BBQ.

Walk in.

 That's the one !

 Saule on one of the initial pitches.

Some good-looking rock.

Saule higher up.

The Piola part.

More face climbing.

Looking for the next objectives.

Tag the summit.

There is a whole bunch of these awesome towers in this part of the massif.

Sleep well.

The morning actually turned out to be rather gloomy.

Coming back to Midi in a whiteout.

Chilling down in Cham.

In the other news, we met two Italians on the summit, who had some new-design ultra-lightweight abseil sandals. Coming to your nearest retailer this summer. Keep an eye out for them!