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!

Bockmattli

Ever since spotting the pretty rock face of Bockmattli during one of my bike rides round Zurisee, I was eager to check it out from closer. It turned out to be a really worthwhile cliff, almost a local small-big-wall. Fabio and I did the classic Direkte Nordwand.

The route goes just to the left of the huge corner on the main face

Alpsteinmarathon

With just one free day before experiments in Saclay, Saule and I decided to check out the Alpstein in Appenzell. Since we always struggle with the route choices, we just went for the longest one - Alpsteinmarathon (topo) - 800 meters up to 6b+ lead to the top of Hundstein.

Saule high up on the route.

Pumped at Schillingsflue

Cyrill and I had an endurance session on Sunday at Schillingsflue. It is pretty awesome being spat off the route not because of difficulty, but rather the accumulation of lactic acid in the body. Need to work on that. In terms of climbing, I managed to struggle up Eunuch, a 7a+ and then took a few falls off the last move of Heiris Direkt, a rather nice 7b.

Idyllic views on the drive in.

Cyrill getting pumped on HD.

Alhambra

Another quick visit to Ticino, this time taking a train and hoping that the new tunnel would be finished sooner. A bunch of us went to the most crowded crag in Switzerland - Ponte Brolla and got a few pitches in. Also, in two parties we climbed a longer route across the valley, called Alhambra.

Frieder halfway up Alhambra

Laura wrote a clearly better report of their fun with Martynas.

Sobrio

We left Zurich on a gloomy morning with a fully squeezed mobility car. The plan, as usual, was to seek some sun and dry rock. The legend goes that if one crosses the Magic Gotthard Tunnel, on the other end a sunny-Italian-speaking land awaits the weary northerner.

We did just that and had some pretty good climbing in the sun in a crag next to a Sobrio village.

The gang.

Povilas on a 7a.

Cyrill sending a 7b.

First 4k of the year

With the weather everywhere in the alps looking moody, there was a half-day good weather promised in Valais. Frieder came up with a plan to tag Castor from the lift of Klein Matterhorn and this worked out nicely - nice views, fun climb up and good snow on the way down.

something for next time

The snow machine

Up

Rather nice ridge

Gipfel

On the way out