Friday, May 10, 2013

Climbing at the Schartenflue

 We had more ambitious plans for the long weekend but we were, once again, thwarted by the weather.

Our original backup plan was to do some indoor climbing, just to do something to try and get back into the rhythms. Since it wasn't actively raining in the afternoon we decided to try doing something outside instead. After a bit of flipping through Plaisir Jura, we were on the train and then bus to Gempen (been a long time since we were last there). A brief hike up to the restaurant and tower and then down the stairs to the foot of the klettergarten.

We headed straight for sector E, where the easy routes are. There's no-one around, which is great, but plenty of the rock is still wet from the rain, which is definitely not great (plenty slippery that wet limestone). We scrutinize each of the routes, but they all have wet bits. Damn! Since we're pretty desperate, we decide to give the least-wet of the routes a try. This goes well and we enjoy ourselves enormously for a few climbs (including variations, for practice), so we move over to another route. This one's trickier towards the top (small, wet holds), but since we're alone Andrea can move around to the neighboring route to get to the top and set the top rope.

The sun is shining by the time we're done, so we head home by walking down to Dornach.
Nice start of the season!

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