Switzerland and Italy in 2022 - Warming up
This year's climbing trip took place, once again, in Switzerland and Italy. This time I combined the two by train to save a bit of money and the environment, even though Swiss train tickets are stupidly expensive so I didn't end up saving as much money as I would have liked. I had booked Jiri, a friend of mine from Czechia, for a week in Switzerland and continued the trip for five more days in the Dolomites with Markus, who flew straight to Venice and met me in Verona.
After Finnair cancelled my original flight to Geneva I ended up flying to Zürich, which was actually better for me in the end. Jiri met me there and we started the trip off by driving to pretty much the only potentially dry place in Switzerland with a plan to climb a short and a bit easier multi pitch as a warm up for the trip. The route of choice was Familienroute, 6 pitches, 5c+. The walk in was a proper sweaty hike up a road for about an hour.
Having done the first three pitches we reached what could be called a small patch of forest on steep terrain. At this point Jiri thought that the clouds near the mountain ridge not far from us didn't look good enough and thought we should head down. I don't like to give up easily so I was a bit hesitant but agreed anyway. Jiri's decision was definitely the right one because it started to rain just as we touched the ground. With the hikes up and down it was a good warm up day for the trip anyway!
For the second day of the trip we headed up to an area called Brüggler that is close to Näfels in eastern Switzerland. The guide book writes that "For a long time, the Brüggler has been considered one of the most beautiful and well known limestone slabs in Eastern Switzerland". The big light grey wall of limestone is an impressive sight indeed and offered great climbing along water runnels. The first climb we did was called Tante Ju, 5 pitches, 5c+. I struggled more than I would have liked on the first 5c+ pitch but made it up even though I didn't find the anchor that was supposed to be there. The rest of the route felt more comfortable and we reached the top with ample time to hike down from the top of the Brüggler.
At the top of the Brüggler for the first time
The Swiss weather didn't want to play ball with us and we were kind of forced to stay at Brüggler for one more day. Thankfully the place has a lot of routes so finding another interesting one wasn't going to be a problem. We chose a route called Highway, 6 pitches, 5b. Once again the 5b pitch felt way harder than it should have, but to my defense the drizzling rain that started half way through the pitch didn't exactly help. It sure made me climb faster though! Luckily the rain didn't last for very long and we had an enjoyable climb up the rest of the pitches. It was funny to reach the top of the same mountain for the second time within two days :).
Some sheep and a stellar view from the Furka pass as we moved on from the Brüggler
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