Piz Badile Voie Cassin

Jeff and I headed back to Switzerland, chasing some long routes. The first on the list was the Voie Cassin on the Piz Badile, one of the 6 classic north faces. This was our second attempt in a way, since we made the drive out a year before only to find the route covered in water and snow. But this time things had shaped up perfectly. We left the van in the town of Bondo, and made the several hour hike to the Sasc Furä Hut, which has great food and a really cool crew working there. I was terribly jetlagged, didn’t really sleep the night before the climb, and got sick on the approach, but everything cleared up once the rock shoes were on.

This is a really great route, about 20 pitches, with nearly all of the climbing between 5a-5c. We’ve also started using faster tactics, taking turns linking pitches and using microtraxions at the belay points to keep things safe. Our total time from the base to the summit was 6 hours, pretty fast!

The descent was brutal! We basically down climbed the entirety of the north ridge, which itself looks to be a really fun outing. But onsight descending a 1000m route meant we got lost a few times, ran out of water, and finally stumbled back to the hut just minutes before dinner was served. Overall, an excellent experience!

After the Badile we decided we needed some more Swiss climbing, so we headed up to the Salbithütte. We had our eyes on the West Ridge, a 35 pitch 6b, but being a bit worked we decided on the Südgrat, a shorter but still very high quality climb to a spire summit. The rock here is incredibly high quality, which let us move quickly through the pitches of 4s and 5s. A few short cruxes and lots of simulclimbing put us on top a beautiful picturesque summit. The swirling clouds even made for some Brocken Spectres! I definitely plan on getting back here!