Last stop on our Switzerland trip: B2 Boulders and Bar, the best climbing gym EVER! With a flight scheduled out of Basel, the decision was made that we MUST do a session in “the best climbing gym in Switzerland,” B2. And so we did. For those of us climbers that have been at it for 20+ years now, we likely all remember fondly those early gym days. Plywood walls, late 90’s / early 2000’s techno music thumping, people working problems together and actually having conversations (no stupid earbuds!), climbs that flow like real climbs do outdoors on real boulders (no stupid acro-yoga-parkour-circus b.s. moves!), and people just climbing (not obsessing over their prescribed limit-bouldering training workout). This gym delivered on all fronts. We climbed our hearts out, smiling nonstop. And the kids thought it was even pretty cool too. Old-school rules!
No, we did not climb the Eiger. Not on this trip anyway. We did do an amazing hike though that skirted the base of it, a loop hike that started and ended in the town of Grindelwald. Unbeknownst to us the Eiger Ultra race was also happening this same weekend, with some of the course sharing parts of the trail we hiked and one of the races being a 155 miler! Wowie!
A Lindt store in the cable car station in Grindelwald. Who knew there are so many flavors?!
And a bonus to go with an amazing hike: a pretty darn amazing campsite, right under the Eiger!
The Swiss need to get around, regardless of whether The Alps consume the majority their country. Hence the reason for the landscape being riddled with roads, tunnels, bridges and various other manmade infrastructure. While this may not be appealing for someone wanting to get that pure experience or photo of wilderness mountain beauty, unobstructed with evidence of civilization, it does make accessibility prevalent, and well….quite irresistible. Many of the mountain passes have tunnels going through them as well as roads going over them that are open during summer. These passes also have boulders. And so thanks to the Swiss’ need to get around in their mountainous countryside, cranking down on amazing boulders can be done within just a 5 minute walk from the car.
Grit styling the balance-y Nothing to Lose, 4c
My turn
Manu making quick work of Lupisciu, 6a
Lupisciu
Paul sending Ecstasy, 7a, the area classic
Ecstasy
Tea time
Herr Zimmerli, 7b
A helicopter picking up a goat milking station to transfer up into the high country while we were climbing. Again, the Swiss need to get around, and really know best on how to do so! Also note the mushroom-shaped object. This is an exhaust vent for the highway tunnel that is under us. 🤯
Cute kiddos, ecstatic to have had helicopter entertainment for the day
Next stop on our Swiss climbing road trip: Göschenenalp, and route climbing on the Kompressorwand wall. Göschenenalp was one of our most favorite places on the trip. Grit and Manu shared with us that the tiny town of Göschenen has a population of about 20 people and is one of the only high alps mountain towns that is continuously inhabited year-round, meaning in winter, the town is cut off from civilization due to snow. One morning Grit and I hiked up the hill on a trail through the woods from the campground to the town in search of much needed showers. The “town” consists of a church, a restaurant and lodge, a few homes, and what looked to be a dormitory-style apartment structure / hut, of which contained a coin-operated shower in which I took the shortest shower of my life. The town relies heavily on summer tourism (which is now making me ponder why I didn’t just go ahead and use 10 Swiss francs for a long leisurely shower instead of 3?), and so the restaurant with locally grown and prepared food is quite the hot-spot for tourists. The blueberries for the blueberry tiramisu and blueberry ice cream are picked fresh from the mountainside. And I would assume so is the oregano, as I found myself sitting in an entire hillside of it while snapping photos of the kids climbing the routes.
Ivan on Hössi Route, 5c+ and Rosa on Kurts Regentanz, 5c+
Rio on Hössi Route, 5c+
Paul on Relax, 6a. Yes, this is a bolted crack. We’re not in Yosemite anymore people.
Ivan likes to count things when on a trip. Usually it’s vehicles, like Escape Vans, Teslas or Cyber Trucks. Occasionally it’s more intensive subject matter, like steps on a hike (not even kidding). On this trip to Switzerland he found his thing to count right away: Glaciers!
This day hike to Steinsee Lake below the Steingletscher (stone glacier) contained one of 16 glacier sightings along the trip. 16!!
Like any good climber fully dedicated to his or her sport in all aspects, we started off our climbing road trip with a healthy dose of drinking and partying with Grit and Manu’s neighbors late into the night before we left. Needless to say we got off to a late start the next day. But no worries! Switzerland is packed with all kinds of climbing options within just a couple hours drive (or less!) and the sun doesn’t go down in summer until almost 10pm. Win win. And our climbing performance wasn’t too shabby either. 😁
Sustenpass
Grit warming up on an unnamed 5b
Me ticking off an unnamed 6b+
Paul topping out Steinbeisser, 6b
Manu attempting Dynamo, 7a
Paul sending a variation of Dynamo, 7b
Best buddies with a striking resemblance to one another
On account of the bad weather delay but still wanting to squeeze the spirit out of Plan A, we opted to cram three days of hut hiking into two. This meant no second night of hut sleeping, but a whopper of a second day hiking.
After waking in the Bluemlisalp Hutte to the delight of actually having slept through the night despite being on a top bunk bed that slept 9 other people (yes, you read that right: one mattress, 10 people. Same below on the bottom bunk. Stay in your lane sleepers!), I made my way down to the all-gender bathroom to relieve myself, brushed my teeth and splashed some ice cold water on my face, icy cold being the only option. Back upstairs the dining room was serving a traditional Swiss breakfast of yogurt and muesli, bread, jam and stinky cheese, with plenty of coffee. We ate up, exchanged our hut-provided crocs for our still-wet shoes down in the “drying room,” filled our bottles with a choice of either water or herbal tea, strapped on the crampons and embarked upon our decent.
Our route for the day would take us down into a lush green valley, up a long rocky moraine to the toe of an active glacier, with more glaciers hanging precariously above and the trail marked with warning signs to move fast, then up the other side of the moraine and valley to a saddle with an epic view of the Eiger, and then down, down and further down to the very bottom of the next valley over, the Lauterbrunnen Valley, the hotspot for anyone that knows anything about BASE jumping. Ah, and did I forget to mention that our route would include ladder climbing, nervy cable clutching, and a rest stop at a mountain farm that serves the best vanilla milkshakes in the universe? And also a train ride home that we would sprint up stairs to catch (after 9,000 feet of downhill hiking!) to thankfully find a little girl holding the door for us and the bar car to our immediate left after stepping aboard?
Dang was the spirit of Plan A squeezed good! And my thighs agreed, thanking me plenty over the following few days. 9,000 feet! Ouch! 😬
Open the map and pick out a multi-day through-hike. Pack a small backpack with only the essentials, a few warm layers, some water, day snacks, and tons of sunscreen. Take a train and maybe also a bus and perhaps a cable car to the trailhead. Start hiking uphill, straight uphill, like literally up a mountain….or three. Pass some glaciers. Pass farm animals in places that one wouldn’t think farm animals could be. Pass or be passed by fit and smiling people. Take care not to step off trail and slide and tumble to your death. Debate on whether or not it’s finally time to pull the crampons out. Re-apply the sunscreen, again. And eventually reach the day’s destination: a hut that feeds and sleeps dozens of people, and serves beer in hefty glass Swiss mugs.
Hut hiking is quite the experience to say the least!
The Prealps region refers to the smaller mountains and hills at the foot of the High Alps. Due to significant snow in the forecast, we needed a Plan B to launching out on a backpacking trip in the High Alps. Grit and Manu decided to take us on one of their favorite ridge traverses around the Gantrisch Mountain area near their home. Snow in the High Alps though means rain in the Prealps. But we are prepared, all the way down to the rain pants. Yes, rain pants! I thankfully took Grit and Manu’s advice while packing and bought us each a pair on a very dry and hot 110 degree day back in Tucson. The rain did indeed eventually come just as we were making our way to the cheese house, followed by a furious but short bout of snow. Yes, a cheese house! A little hut stocked with cheese made from the milk of the cows, goats and sheep grazing happily and living the good life along the trails is not at all unusual here, we learn. Leave your Swiss Francs and take a block. Delightful!
