Winter North Face Direct in Switzerland

Steven Fortune, Maximilian Meyer & Jon Murua
Direkte Norwand - Nüneneflue - Gantrisch
Date: 24.02.2024
1,870m
Pitches: M3, M3, M5, M7, M4, M4

Transcript:
Gantrisch is a beautiful natural park near Bern.
The peaks are not very high, just above 2K meters,
but the environment is very wild and the climbing routes are fantastic.

For Nuneneflue, the approach is straight forward.
There is a paying parking, roughly an hour away
And often we don't need skis or even snowshoes

Climbing turf is fun, a lot of fun!
But it requires for the turf to be fully frozen or it can be dangerous.
These routes tend to be bolted, because protecting the turf is very hard,
but there are very long runouts on what seems like easy terrain.
But trust me, it is not that easy!

Often, under the snow there is nothing but air trapped between bushes.
That means that there is nothing to hold on to and it can feel pretty scary.

Don't forget to subscribe to my channel
to get notified when new videos of climbing or mountaineerin like this one get published


After 2 easy pitches, the difficulties start.
The 3rd pitch is an M5. A beautiful crack by a completely smooth wall.
Shame I couldn't record the climbing, but I had to be fully focused.
In fact, there were no bolts, so all was protected with friends and nuts.
This pitch can be bypassed from the right hanside on a steep snow face,
but it is much more fun to climb it and to warm up for the monster M7 coming up next.



This pitch looks intimidating. It is very steep and technical.
There is not a single bolt or piton, so leading it is a pretty mental achivement.
It took us one whole hour to climb this pitch to each of us.
One hour in paradise !
Fully focused, managing the pump, searching for holds and making bouldery moves to progress smoothly

The block it the middle is streneous.
We all passed this move with a single ice axe and a bare hand.
Fan-Tas-Tic !

I didn't take the leashes for the ice axes this day and I regreted.
I don't like the leashes because they get tangled as I climb
But in terrain where bailing is not possible, I always carry them.
For this route, bailing is possible, so I didn't take the leashes
However, while climbing this pitch I was very worried about dropping one tool
In fact, to pass the boulder, I had to clip one ice axe to a carabiner while climbing so that I could use a bare hand to climb and not be afraid of dropping the tool

The fifth pitch is easier, M4
But we had to keep focused

The last pitch, is rated M4, but it felt harder.
We struggled to find good holds to exist the cave.
It was good fun though !
Definetely a good way to finish the route.

After the 6th and last pitch, we can either rappel the route or exit via the summit.
We chose to go for the summit which took us about half an hour to reach on wild terrain.
Winter ridge climbing, downclimbing and even with some rappels !

Have fun in the mountains and stay safe !