Switzerland wrap up

The dream is over, boo hoo hoo. Just finished my first week back at work and I miss the beautiful Swiss Alps. The final week we had there was amazing, so much fun and an awesome crew. Thanks guys for making it a great trip, I'm sure your all loving being back to reality just as much as I am.

So after spending a frustrating few days waiting for the snow to bugger off and a fun trip to Interlarken (even though it was snowing too much to see the Igar)
we finally managed to cram a lot into the last three days with some beautiful and crisp conditions. Unfortunately I was a bit slack on the photo's cause of all the frantic climbing, sorry.

I had been really keen to get back on this roof problem called 'Backgammon' which is an 8a or a 7c stand. It has a huge move out the roof to a sloper then a go again to a good edge at nearly full span. We managed to work out a good way to do the move with a high heel and I was sure I would be able to do the problem having nearly stuck the move. I had a quick look at the easy finishing moves or at least that's what I thought! I got totally shut down. I wasn't able to work out a good way of linking the crux throw into the finishing traverse that exits the roof via a thin seam, Tragedy! So off we went with our tails between our legs to find some other problems.

We headed over to the Jungle book for Pat to try for a send on the sit start. Unfortunately the snow kept the top out wet and he never got the chance to finish it off. I felt bad for him, he had looked so solid on it and I'm sure he would have got it done if he had the chance. One for next time.

XP is this cool little 7c on a small triangular bloc in front of Jungle book. Me and Pat had been spying it since we got there and it was time to give it a go. Essentially it's a hard pull on from an undercling with bad feet then slap out some sharp holds to get out of the low pit, punch out to the arete and cruise to the top. After struggling with the first move initially we both manage to send. Pat also managed a quick send of this awesome 7a+ near by "Media Men" involved slapping up this fridge type block feature then a huge move at the top. He managed to over come the dicey top out without falling much to my relief.

One last big day. We decide to just get out and just have some fun and we ended up climbing alot of stuff it was really cool. So a quick run down.

Me, Pat and Tor all managed "street parade 7a" which is a classic Cresciano sloper traverse. Pat made a quick send of "voule a vont 7a" and a surprise ascent of the area classic "Arcadia 7c" which is a proud slopey arete. Pat and me also managed "voci dalla cantina 7b+" After a quick chat with Bern Zangeral we all did this classic high ball boulder which Pat scrambled like an egg and was one of the most memorable of the trip. Me and Tor also snuck in the classic "ci credo o non ci credo 7a" just before dark, happy days.

The last day is still a bit of a blur, I ran into Milan with Pat at 3am to get him off for his flight home then jumped back in bed for a couple hours before me, Tor and Simen headed out for one last quick hoorah. I had a quick look at this problem high up in the boulder field the previous day called "carlo il magnifico 7a+" it looked awesome, so we thought we'd head up and give it a shot. This thing is a seriously cool sharp arete feature slapping up opposing side pulls and the arete. We only had till about 1.00pm before we had to leave to get the boys to the train and me and Tor were both getting very close. It came right down to the wire in the end with me just managing to scrap a send in and Tor getting robbed when his hand blew of the side pull going to the finishing hold.

So there you go, the end of an unbelievable trip.