Summer camp in Bergell (July 2020) – „Badile? if it’s too bad I lead“

I proposed to AACB members (and a few mountaineering friends) to join a „summer camp“ in Bergell. Simple idea inspired from last summer: gather there for a week using a local camping as base camp, and tour around to discover some of the amazing local moutaineering routes. To keep the organisation minimal and make everyone adjust his expectations, I asked to come as „rope teams“: I’d simply contribute a thorough collection of topos, touring suggestions for all grades, and be a contact point for meeting as much as possible in huts and in the valley. In the end, we were only one rope team – maybe this was not the best recipe ?

Nonetheless we had a tremendous week and did a tour as one knows one won’t do so many in one’s life – sorry for the emphasis, feels almost writing like a Californian, but that’s really what it is 😉

A detour through Bernina

The team was Théo and Thomas (writing), seasoned climber with limited alpine experience and seasoned alpinist with limited climbing skills respectively. To get started, I decided that we couldn’t go so far East in Switzerland without giving Théo a taste of Bernina: attracted by famous Piz Palü, we picked the easiest of the three North ridges, aka the „Kuffner ridge“.
After dropping our stuff at the camping in Vicosoprano, we headed to Diavolezza with the last cable car (to my defense, I had done a long ridge tour on a 4000 the day before, with an endless descent to the valley). Starting deliberately early, we enjoyed an extremely diverse tour: first an impressive glacier in pitch dark, zigzaging between seracs and large crevasses. Very entertaining climbing on first-grade granite as main piece, with the feeling of the ridge getting always more squeezed between two wild glaciers. Followed by a finished on a sharp and exposed snow ridge (45º+, in perfect conditions) to reach the summit plateau. Finally, we traversed all Piz Palü, and Piz Spinas to reach Fuorcla Bellavista; an easy but always picturesque classic. Overall, this tour is not famous without reason: it has a bit of everything, and always of the best kind!

Our initial plan was to stay at Biv. Pansera and to climb Piz Zupò SE ridge on the next day. A mixture of covid restrictions at the bivacco and unfavorable weather forecast made us descend to Rif. Marinelli. The next day turned out into a long, remote glacier hike. Impressive couloir (50º+ with crevasses and not much snow left at parts) which consolidated Théo’s already growing experience. After descending la Fortezza, we reached Morteratsch station exactly at the same time rain started.

    

 

 

„Reculer pour mieux sauter“

First a well-deserved rest day, started with a gastronomic breakfast – we just had our first but not last contact with the Latteria Bregaglia (oh my! these yogurts…!). Studying topos between strong rain showers, we decided to ascend on the same day after dinner to Rif Albigna so that we can take advantage of the short window of good weather on the next morning for climbing a multi-pitch route. Lightning fast ascent, running behind Théo – nothing like 1250m up to end up a rest day!

Beautiful climb to the famous Fiamma (aka Spazzacaldeira), chaining Dente per Dente (6a+; 8 pitches), the NE ridge, and finally the last pitch on the Fiamma itself. The hut warden was right: the weather staid stable all day long 🙂 And we came down with the satisfaction of a very nice climb done with heavy backpacks filled with boots and the rest. A good enough test piece to convince us that the Via Cassin on Piz Badile was not out of reach if we had good conditions for us.

The „main course“: Via Cassin on Piz Badile

The kind of tour that you dream of, don’t really dare to talk about too seriously… But after all, we had an „old dog“ and a „rope gun“ in our team 😉 and we had just convinced ourselves that we were able to climb this sort of grade with backpacks. Saturday was luckily forecasted with very stable weather. So we go!

Careful packing at the camping (chasing every possible gram), followed by a long ascent in the clouds. We won’t see Badile today. Almost at the hut, we met an elderly couple, very sweet, coming back from Italy. They turned out to have climbed „the“ Cassin 4 days before. This nice encounter and the extremely warm welcome at the Sasc Fura hut made for a nice evening despite the underlying apprehension of the coming enterprise. Somewhat surprised to be the only one aiming for this famous route on this day… Start at 4am, we met at the end of the approach a Czech couple coming from the biwak site: we quickly realised that we would spend the whole day together on this wall. 700m up through very compact granite! No need to say: all „clean“.

Beautiful start in the Rébuffat diedra after passing literally through an usual neve… Pitch after pitch, the rock and the atmosphere is already up to the route reputation! After 5 pitches, we know that the next one will be difficult to find, I go first –my turn–, come back –too committed–, Theo goes, progresses… finds it hard (he shouldn’t, the pitch is graded 5c), decides to climb straight to come back to an easier section (there are sparse pitons all over the place – not enough to protect but already too much to indicate a route clearly). As tension grows at the belay station, Théo suddenly breaks a hold! Starts falling, first friend jumps readily – he had said it was sh*** –, keep falling and falling. Finally stops! The  second friend has hold. „THÉO? ça va?“ With immense luck, he has seriously scratched his right side but is not properly injured. I carefully belay him back to me. Time to look at his wounds, protect them as well as we can, to let the stress come down a bit, and… to take decision. I share my (luckily limited) experience of serious falls, warning against pain likely to come with fatigue. In the end, we decide to keep going – anyway rappelling from here doesn’t seem easier than climbing up (literally…) so we agree on calling rescue later if needed.

    

 

Alternating more athletic sections with slabs or chimneys (always sustained), we slowly progress through this huge wall. Every pitch is 45 to 50m… so 20 pitches means quite a lot of climbing. As the day passes, it becomes clear that we won’t make it to Rif. Gianetti in the evening; fortunately there is a bivacco right at the summit. The V-chimney at the start of the final section makes a big impression on us, so unusual! We finally reach the N-ridge little before sunset. Relieved but really pumped – Théo can’t help feeling cold. We drag ourselves along the last four or five pitches on the ridge, much easier but not easy enough for our tired tastes. Truly fulfilled to reach the summit! Our Czech buddies wave at us from the bivacco: there are only 2 sleepers left for us – now it’s full! It feels good to see them, they have witnessed Théo’s fall as I did, so they have a better sense of how we feel. Second round of disinfection for Théo, eat whatever we have left and straight to bed – or whatever you want to call it given how shallow, hard, and cold it is. Still we sleep.

The descent is still an alpine tour in itself. We follow the new rappel route – got the rope stuck at the first rappel… but then go smoothly. We hike directly down to Bagno del Masino from where runs a public bus. Not exactly smooth for the poor Théo 🙁 It will then take us the full afternoon to go back to Val Bregaglia with public transport – 1.5h stop at Morbegno:  5-scoops gelati! – 1.5h stop at Colico: bath in Lago di Como – 1h stop at Chiavenna: apero nella piazza. To close this unforgettable week, we have dinner at l’Albergo Corona in Vicosoprano (no joke!).

I know only one thing: I will come back to Bergell!

Participants: Théo, Thomas. Report and photos: Thomas.

PS: Théo’s wounds healed impressively fast and he has now fully recovered.