Helvetia part VII: Multipitching Bire

On Tuesday 10th August, I had maybe the most awesome and a quite long day off, when we went to climb Bire, one of the closest mountain peaks.

We took the Oeschinensee cable car up and started hiking the path up towards Bire. It took around 40mins to walk the path to the beginning of the climb. We started climbing around 11.30am. The pitches were pretty short, straight forward and quite easy, cause the whole Bire route is graded as 5a, which is the hardest grade of the pitches and some of them are even easier.

After some hours of climbing, we reached the grassy part before the peak. We had to walk on a path towards the peak and those last pitches. The last pitches were also quite straight forward, but towards the peak we found out the lack of bolts, so e.g. we had to make a 'slings around few rocks' anchor once. Finally, we reached the top of Bire around 18.30pm. At the altitude of 2500m, the views were quite poor at first, cause of clouds, but we were actually above them. The whole climb was pretty much around 450 to 500 meters, so it's obviously going to take for a while.

After the climb, we started to head down on a miserable path towards Oeschinensee. Actually, we had to call to the centre to delay our route card. Finally, we reached the village and we called to the centre again to sign in our route card, cause we wanted to catch the last pizzas at Dessis (Hotel Des Alpes) and so we did. Totally an awesome ending for an awesome day, when we had pizza and beer at Dessis around 22.30pm.

Helvetia part VI: Blüemlisalphütte hiking

Awesome. On air again for a while...

When my relatives came here for a visit from 29th July to 3rd August, I got nice chance to have two days off in row. As the plan was to hike up to Blüemlisalphütte with my cousin, and so we did it. Although, the weather forecast was quite crappy for those two days, we still headed towards Blüemlisalphütte after a delicious moment at Marmotte, the local tea room. The weather was really a bit crappy, but luckily it didn't rain that much. Only some drizzle just above Oeschinensee and just before the hut. Otherwise, it was just really cloudy and foggy all the way up there.

We finally reached Blüemlisalphütte few hours before the dinner. Blüemlisalphütte locates at the altitude of 2840m above the sea level, so the views should be really awesome. Unluckily, the hut was basicly inside of the clouds all the time, so no nice pictures from alpine views. The dinner was pretty nice, cause we were basicly allowed to eat as much as we could.

When we woke up next morning, there was some snow around the hut and the famous visibility was still pretty crap. Although, we were able to take some nice snowy pictures of the hut. Just after having some breakfast, we started heading down and as we reached lower altitudes the weather started to clear up a bit, but the hut seemed to be still inside of clouds.


All in all, it was very cool hike and nice few days off, although the weather was what it was...

Helvetia part V: Climbing going on

It has been quite hectic, when it comes to climbing. This week, I've had three intermediate climbing courses in row, on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. So it has been basicly hanging out at the climbing wall of Winteregg. By the Wednesday's cable car down from Winteregg, the cable car driver already recognised me and asked 'What have you been doing during these days in row?'.

On Thursday's day off, we decided to go climbing and surprisingly we went to Winteregg. So four days in row at Winteregg climbing wall. Although, the day off was a bit more relaxed and climbing was more fun and free, than during working days. So all in all, four days in row at Winteregg and eight cable car rides, which is a pretty good achievement in four days...

Sorry, there aren't any pictures available from climbing or from my 'Oh shit' lead climbing fall that I took last week...

Helvetia part IV: A pretty nice day off

Awesome...

I started my day off by taking the Sunnbüel cable car up at 8.30. From the cable car station, I started hiking towards Gemmipass passing the mountain hotel, Schwarenbach, around 9.30. I continued hiking after a short break at Schwarenbach. After hiking uphill for a while, the path suddenly started to go along the lakeside of Daubensee.

After the lakeside path, the route reached quite quickly the viewpoint of Gemmipass. At the viewpoint just by the Gemmipass cable car station, I had my packed lunch and took some photos of the mountains and the view down towards the town of Leukerbad. There was also a mountain side restaurant, where I had a coke. Actually, it was pretty amazing to drink a coke on the terrace, which was almost hanging from a cliff at the altitude of around 2340 meters, while Leukerbad locates at around 1400 meters.

Then, I decided to head back towards Schwarenbach and Sunnbüel cable car station.

Helvetia part III: Lötschenpass hike, department selections and the first whole day off

Lötschenpasshütte 2690m

On Wednesday, we had our last hike of the basic training season. The one day Lötschenpass hike started in the morning by taking a bus to Gasterntal valley, the village of Selden. From Selden, we started to hike up towards Lötschenglacier. At first, the path was mostly quite easy, but after a while it started getting steeper and doing more 'zic-zac'. Finally, we reached the beginning of the glacier, which is by the way called 'the world's safest glacier'. Mainly, because it doesn't move so much, so there are no unexpected crags under the surface snow. Then we hiked up the glacier to the Lötschenpass hut, 2690m. From the hut, we hiked down to Lötschental valley and to the village of Ferden. We took a bus from Ferden to Goppenstein, where we jumped off and took a train to Kandersteg, through the Lötschbergtunnel.

On Friday morning, we got to know in which department we are mainly going to work. Luckily, I got my first choice, which was programme. On our first day, we had the Gasterntal hike. It's one of the easiest hikes of KISC. We took a bus to the village of Selden and we hiked up further to Gasterntal valley to the Heimritx's viewpoint. At the viewpoint, we had a really long lunch break, when we also got to know each other a bit better. The programme department is devided into smaller sections and I got chosen to the climbing section, which is pretty much more than okay. Then, we hiked down the Gasterntal valley back to Kandersteg.

On Saturday, we had the first day off of our department. We checked out the local Allmenalp via ferrata route with a few other programme shorties. I can just only say that it was really amazing with all the rock faces and two cable bridges crossing a waterfall. Maybe you can find more about the 'awesomeness' from the photos...