An entire weekend of glorious weather. Arne, Luigi, Mark, Piotr and I decide to take advantage of this and climb at the Gelmerfluh. The Grimselpass hasn't opened for the season yet, but it is passable up until the hydro electric dam. This is all we need and we figure the fact that it's still early season for the high country means there'll be fewer climbers on the wall.
Mark, Piotr and I rope up to climb Sagittarius. A great classic on the wall. Luigi and Arne have already climbed this one and go for the neighboring Savoir Vivre instead. The routes share both the start and the top, which makes them a perfect pair to climb simultaneously. Our strategy is to lead in blocks and Piotr does the first few warmup pitches. He's recovering from tennis/climbers elbow and doesn't feel fit to lead the harder pitches. His foot slips early on the first pitch and he takes a fall. Harmless, and he recovers quickly and leads the rest of his block without issues.
After that Mark and I take turns on the sharp end of the rope. It works out that I get to lead the famous seventh pitch: a 6a+ 30m splinter crack. Absolutely gorgeous. Climbing doesn't get any better than this. Definitely one of the top three pitches I have ever climbed. The pitch leading into that was already quite a spectacle. "The black corner" 6a+ requires powerful athletic moves and a super delicate traverse on a blank slab. Unfortunately I screwed up my lead on that one. I was led astray by the way the route is bolted and was looking for a solution too high up. I climbed up and down a few times, trying to find purchase on the smooth slab. Eventually I gave up and loaded the rope just a tiny bit to make it across. Super annoying as it spoiled a clean red-point. Turns out there was a much better solution just a meter further down. C'est la vie.
Mark gets to lead the crux 6b pitch. A short traverse under a roof. No footholds at all, you can only smear your feet on the granite. The handholds are pretty marginal too, so you need good balance for a reachy move around the corner where it continues with a mantle move onto a slab. A short, but intense, pitch. Mark leads the next pitch too, the final 6a "slab dance" on delicate footholds and tiny crimpers before the terrain gets steeper and more structured.
The final batch of pitches all feel easy compared to what came before them, even if some of them are nominally still graded 6a. We speed through them, topping out a little over five hours after starting the climb. A pretty good time, given that we're a party of three and the guidebook suggests 5 to 7 hours of climbing. We have a well deserved break for snacks while waiting for Arne and Luigi to catch up to us. They are not far behind and before long we start the long descent, rappelling back down the way we came.
We rappel as a group of five, sending two people at a time on a single strand each. To make this safe we fix the ropes at the anchor. The last person to rappel, the odd fifth, undoes that and performs a regular rappel on both strands at the same time. The technique is fast and efficient and barely slows us down compared to rappelling as just a regular party of two. We do learn that Mark's fancy new 7.7mm ropes, which we affectionately call "shoelaces", make it very difficult to tie a prusik that actually bites. Combined with the fact that most belay/rappel devices are designed for thicker ropes makes it so that you have to be extra careful on the way down.
On my commute back from work on Friday I crashed my bike when a jogger forced me to reduce my turn radius a little too much. This meant I was climbing with a bruised right hand, elbow and shoulder and an injured heel. By the time we started rappelling my foot hurt so much that I prefered to go barefoot. Five+ hours in tight climbing shoes had a similar effect on the others, so before long most of us were barefoot. Somewhat ironically, considering we were at 2000 meters altitude surrounded by glaciers and snow, the rock was almost painfully hot from the sun. I don't have my summer feet yet, not having spent a lot of time barefoot this year ;-)
5a, 5c+, 6a, 5c+, 5c+, 6a+, 6a+, 6b, 6a, 6a, 5c+, 6a, 5b
Savoir Vivre:
6a+, 5b, 6a, 6b, 6a, 6a+ (6c), 6a, 5c, 5c, 5c+, 5c, 5b+, 5a
I think Mark was the only one in the entire group who pulled off a perfectly clean red point ascent. Congratulations! Overall this was another perfect day out in the mountains. Fantastic route, beautiful weather and fun company. What more could you ask for? Thanks everyone!
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