攀登 in 瑞士 by mike

Extremely beautiful route in a wonderful environment. Very easy apart from one single athletic move in P5, which I could not decipher quickly enough and thus pulled on the quick draw...

Route has bolts, but sometimes very far apart. Well protectable with a small set of cams.

With an early start in the shadow, this route over-all felt quite a bit harder than its neighbour "Tajabone". There are a few tough-for-the-grade moves and difficulties are more sustained.

1. Short pitch along a crack. Felt harder than 5b.

2. Extremely cool V-corner, then left onto a slab, then a little boulder-problem.

3. Rather easy terrain and a crack.

4. Traverse left to a little boulder problem, then easy terrain up to the right.

5. Short athletic boulder problem.

6. Traverse right onto a flake and then solve the boulder problem to get into the crack that follows up to the next belay. This is the single hardest move on the route.

7. Fine slab, then old-school-chimney.

8. One single harder move (bolt).

Unfortunately we were mislead to use the new looking rappel anchors to the right of the route and ultimately the rope got stuck two times. It seems these belong to another route, though? Not sure...

It may be better to abseil along the route - even though the maillons are small and there are ample opportunities for the rope to get stuck too...

Not sure if we missed some of the "harder" pitches at the beginning. After the slabs we just ended up scrambling through easier (II-III) terrain until we stood in front of the "Dièdre".

All in all, the "Grande arête" is a worthwile undertaking if you want to do some easy climbing/scrambling and quite a bit of walking.

Wanted to climb the 5c+ variant in pitch 2, but misremembered the topo and ended up in the slightly boring 5a.

Next time, instead of belaying at a tree after pitch 2, I suppose I would walk up to the base of pitch 3 instead.

The first pitch should be considered part of the approach. It's one of the ugliest, wettest, dirtiest and sketchiest pieces of c*** that I ever climbed. 50m ropes did not suffice to reach the first belay. There is a wet fixed rope that helps through the upper part. Even with that fixed rope, leading this pitch is quite sketchy as there is no viable possibility for protection. Oh yeah: extend your quickdraws!

Don't follow the bolts to the right - just take the first two, belay is in the cave.

Nice and very well protected crux. Pitch traverses to the left with a few moves around 6a between the bolts.

Easy chimney and arête

Steep, well protected lay-backing. Sustained but short pitch

One well protected crux move.

Very narrow chimney, then crumbly and easy arête. Annoying with backpack.

The remaining four pitches more or less follow the obvious dihedral. #8 is not very steep. The rock in these pitches is layered diagonally, which may make some moves non-obvious, difficult and/or awkward.

Probably one of the nicest pitches. Very solid rock, jugs. Beautiful red lichen on the rocks.

I had to lead this after my partner was not confident to do that one move above a small ledge where the first bolt is placed. At the top you must not follow the steep dihedral on the left, but you'll have to go right (no more pro) through easier terrain to reach the final belay.

My partner really struggled with this pitch. Especially one move near the top on a good undercling with only tiny footholds is tough to do - and has to be done above the last piton(!) and just before reaching the next bolt.

All in all the route has a few very nice pitches, some traverses, lots of dihedrals. Bolts may be quite spaced, we had to use slings and BD Camalot 0.3 and 0.4 several times. We did not bring larger cams, they could have been useful in the last couple of pitches.

Route-finding is not always easy - the week before a rope-team got lost and needed to be rescued! So be sure to double-check the topo!

Not a great route - at least 1st pitch. 2nd looked promising though.

Crux is right above the first belay above a ledge. If you're not confident, it may be a good idea to climb it in two pitches...

Repeat. 6b in the topo, which I think checks out.

Repeat warm-up.

Ultra-fail 2

Getting to and clipping the 4th bolt is the crux here, but doable. Did have problems finding the right solution a bit further up, too - around 9th bolt or so.

A real beauty. Varied. Technical start, then quite athletic for a bit.

Somehow could not reproduce a good solution in the first crux... 😞

The + needs to be earned. Got thrown off at third bolt on first go. Needed to have a good hard look at this section. The rest is not a piece of cake either.

Athletic and steep at the start, very diagonal in the middle and slabby, technical climbing towards the finish.

Retreated because of partners' vertigo...

After the last time I came here ended after only two pitches because of unexpected circumstances, this time around I was finally able to climb the route in its entirety. My partner was a bit out of shape so he let me lead all of the harder pitches.

In my opinion the route is rightfully a "plaisir" classic. Even though in the ~20 years since its establishment, the cult-factor and the soft limestone seem to have led to it becoming quite a bit polished, this does not seriously impair the pure joy it is to climb this spectacularly overhanging cliff.

The route is really well bolted and there is very little potential for a dangerous fall - and even with all the traverses on the overhanging wall its quite unlikely that you'll take a fall after which you'd have to prussik up to get to the wall again.

1. Crux under the roof. May be a bit wet but usually no real problem. There is a small "runout" (compared to how closely bolted the rest of the route is) in which a fall would be painful, but the difficulty in that section probably is around 4a...

2. Delicate left traverse on relatively small holds right before the end of the pitch.

3. Crux for me was in the lower half of the pitch on slippery holds, but the main difficulty is the sustained slightly overhanging climbing.

4. Short boulder problem on the roof above the belay. This pitch felt significantly easier than P3 and P2. At the end contains a short section where falling is not advisable as you'd hit a ledge, but the climbing there is not difficult - maybe around 5b?

5. Traverse under the huge roof. Left, then up, then left again.

6. Final pitch was wet but still climbable. Felt harder than higher graded P4.

Only P1, P2 was wet.

Warm-up2

Da war der Wurm drin. Erste war ein Würg, bei der zweiten lief's gar nicht mehr. Wechsel in die direkte Plattenwand.

Mit Trekkingschuhen. Schlüsselstelle leider sehr brüchig.

Repeat

Nice "rest day"-climb. Rope drag may be an issue, sometimes it's better to belay on top of the previous pitch than getting to the bolted belay.

1. Getting to first bolt is not super straight forward. LatertThin and well protected crux.

2. A bit easier. Watch for rope drag when approaching next belay.

3. Easier than advertised, but you need to watch out for loose rock here or there.

4. Nice pitch with two thin cruxes. Felt harder than pitches 2 and 3, similar to first. Hardest part was getting your shoes dry from the mud at the start of the pitch. Grassy exit.

5. Slab with jugs, then arete, then bushwhack. Probably better to belay at a tree than to fight through the bushes to get to the bolts.

Slipped 😞