Hiking and climbing in Switzerland: Grimsel Pass and Ticino

My first pandemic international travel. I’m a little embarrassed to admit I hadn’t heard of Grimsel Pass or Ticino even (!) before this trip. Seb had some free time between work meetings in southern Germany and offered to pick me at the Basel airport in a caravan for about ten days of climbing. I’m also embarrassed to admit that, having hardly climbed in two years, at first I wasn’t very excited. What?, a friend who knows the region very well and has a camper van, of course you have to go! That was Ferda’s mother’s reaction. Yes, a pretty fantastic opportunity, isn’t it?

Seb picked me up on the French side of the airport, and we stayed in France only long enough to eat some quiche before crossing into Switzerland. France, Switzerland too, both require a pass sanitaire to eat in restaurants (among other things). The woman who sold the quiche at the boulangerie asked to see it when I said we wanted to eat there (rather than takeaway). My Turkish covid 19 card with a QR code worked (as I had been told it would)!

Switzerland and Turkey (the US too) have about the same covid vaccination rates (~65% — lower than France (76%) and, interestingly, Sri Lanka (71%)), but the pass sanitaire makes travel feel safer (from a covid standpoint) in Switzerland than in Turkey since you can be more confident that fellow diners and bus passengers are not infectious. (France would be even better, I suppose.)

Ok, let’s get started. Shortly after leaving Basel we saw the sign on the highway for the Roman ruins of Augusta Raurica. I’m a sucker for these things and was tempted to ask Seb to stop until I remembered that I had visited those ruins six years ago.

A bit later on the way to Grimsel Pass Seb stopped at this pullout on Brünig Pass for the nice view:

wait a minute! Check out this photo I took 15 years earlier on my first trip to Switzerland!

At this point Seb was a bit exasperated: “Bryan, can’t I take you anywhere you haven’t already been?” he exclaimed. We drove down the pass and made a sharp left turn away from Interlaken to head east up the valley to Grimsel Pass. I assured Seb I hadn’t been there before. Indeed (thankfully) it turned out to be true — everywhere we went for the rest of the trip was new for me.

Grimsel Pass looks like this from one side:

and this from the other side:

and this at the top:

Here is Seb with his father’s caravan at our first breakfast of the trip.

Grimsel Pass is known for its bolted granite slab climbing. See, you just climb straight up this blank wall, up to the right of where I am.

This was Foxie, an easy (4c) fun 10 pitch route with nice views.

We were in a cloud less than 5 minutes after topping out. In spite of the weather, the many rappels went quickly and easily.

The next day I got my ass kicked following nearby Neuholz (5c; that’s German for “new wood”, but it could more accurately be called “no holds”). Kudos to Seb for eight pitches of hard leading with only taking small falls.

We spent the day heading up blank steep slabs like this:

Mostly I was too cold, tired, and scared to take photos. We actually bailed just before the last (easier; 5a) pitch because we were both shivering.

Seb certainly earned his beer and soup that day.

Enough of Grimsel Pass’ featureless slabs. We spent the rest of the trip in Ticino. Of course, everyone’s heard of Ticino (or least they should have?!). It’s Switzerland’s Mediterranean, Italian-speaking canton with banana and palm trees, warm weather and sunshine.

Lavertezzo is famous for its clear water and over-crowded stone bridge.

We parked the car higher up in Brione and walked steeply up 1000m to Rozerra that afternoon.

The following morning we climbed through this notch:

but this evening we spent the night at the top of the slabby rounded peak at the top of this photo:

This is our shelter, Rifugio Rozzera (aka Bivouac Scorpion).

The terrain up here is impressive,

and the trekking route, well, kind of improbable.

Once the scrambling ended, we followed a good trail to the summit of Poncione d’Alnasca.

Here’s that notch we climbed through.

On the way down we got this great view of our shelter at Rifugio Rozzera, on the impressively flat area in the center of this photo:

In Ticino I was, perhaps, more amazed by the stone architecture than anything else. We saw a few examples on the way up to Rozzera and even more on the way down.

Here is the same roof from the inside and outside.

I guess these used to be mostly shepherds’ huts, but, with Switzerland being what it is now, I think they’re now mostly vacation homes.

After two days of walking, Seb and I spent the next two days doing a little climbing at Ponte Brolla. One of the classic routes in this area is Quarzo at Speroni. It goes up the long, leftmost non-vegetated rib in this photo (see? I wasn’t joking about the palm trees!):

and looks like this when you’re a pitch or two up:

It’s an 11-pitch route, but we only did the first six pitches (5b). Again, Seb led the whole thing after I backed down from the 2nd pitch. Again, he earned his reward — a swim this time.

The next day was almost a rest day — we only climbed two pitches. I had the good fortune to finally lead something in Ticino, the first pitch of Fortuna (4c).

Our last three full days in Switzerland were perhaps the best, a trek up to Capanna Cornavosa above Lavertezzo. We started with a fairly quick (~5 hour) 1500m climb via Rancone and Pincascia to get to the hut.

The next day we walked up to the ridge above the hut and spent almost five hours scrambling on the ridge to climb (and descend) Poncione Rosso. This was one short section of the somewhat famous Via Alta Verzasca.

Wow, that took longer than I expected!

Sorry this is the only photo I have of the inside of my first paid Swiss mountain hut (like Rifugio Rozzera, Solvay Hut on the Matterhorn was free).

I could hardly believe that they sold food, wine, and beer all on the honor system (no warden). You write down everything in a book (including your stay (23 Swiss Francs/person/night)) and put the money in a box when you leave! Wow.

We got a somewhat early start the next morning for the long descent back to Lavertezzo. We went via Eus which meant there was a bit of up and down for the first few hours. Until we got into the sun on the ridge above Eus, we were quite careful on the very frosty and, at times, icy rocks.

Seb had been to Eus multiple times before, and I can see why. It was probably my favorite collection of stone huts, situated high on a saddle with sunshine and nice views.

We were even invited to coffee and schnapps by Lorenzo, the owner of one of the houses at Eus. He was happy to talk in his broken French (as bad as mine; he throws in Italian when he doesn’t know the French while I use Spanish for the same thing; Seb’s French is better than either of ours). Many people in Ticino (but not Lorenzo) speak German (which is why Seb did most the talking while we were there).

While we’re on the language subject: most of the trekkers at the hut spoke English, but I also used Spanish (with a Spaniard) and French (with a Ticinese (is that the correct demonym?)). I never once spoke Turkish the whole time in Switzerland. Ticino is confusingly called Tessin in French. It took me longer to figure that out than it should have!

Frost and colors — I guess fall is here.

Back down in Rancone:

After a short drive Seb and I wandered around the surprisingly deserted and uninteresting center of Locarno before a celebratory final dinner of the trip at a pizzeria in Losone.

The next morning we drove all the way south to north across Switzerland from the Italian border to the German border in about three hours, passing through the 16.9km St. Gotthard tunnel, the 5th longest in the world (Seb and I drove though a 14km long tunnel earlier this year!). Seb dropped me at the Basel airport, and I was back at home in Antalya late that evening. Airplane magic.