2025-07-12
Ringelspitz is one of the more challenging of the Swiss cantonal highpoints, and was my 15th one.
Josh was attending a conference in Germany and flew into Zurich so we could do some climbing beforehand.
Given Josh is a very good climber, I was very happy to have his skills to get me to the top of one of the more technical of the cantonal highpoints. The most common summer route on the Ringelspitz is the Mittelgrat, which promises 5-6 pitches of easy rock climbing, with one more short, classic pitch to attain the summit tower.
I took the day off work on Friday and we made a leisurely approach from the bus stop at Vättis. This was the first major outing since my probably stress fracture 3 months prior at the Lake Züri 100 and I was very unsure how my leg would hold up, so opted for the mildest possible approach, trading an extra kilometer of flat hiking for 400 m of ascent from Tamins.
We packed fairly light, bringing Josh's light 40m rope, 5 quickdraws, 0.5/0.75/1.0 cams, a set of nuts and tool, assorted slings and 'biners, and Josh's mini-traxion device. In good summer conditions I think many climbers would happily do this route with 4-5 quickdraws and no trad gear, as it's bolted. I haven't done this sort of climb in quite a long time, though, and we did expect at least a little snow on the route, so we wanted to be cautious and have options. Crucially, since we expected the route to be mostly snow free, we opted to not carry boots and crampons to the hut, just bringing ice axes and approach shoes. I couldn't find my actual approach shoes the night before so brought my heaviest trail runners (Brooks Cascadia 18, which I'd happily used for an attempt on Milestone Mountain in the Sierra last summer, so I knew they were good for hiking and scrambling). Any second thoughts about the wisdom of at least taking contingency gear to the hut were overriden by my desire to reduce pack weight on the approach and spare my leg. My hike of Chasseral Ouest with a pack at least as heavy had gone fine, but something since that time (pushing off the wall while swimming?) had reversed the progress I'd been seeing in my leg, so I was more nervous on that front.
Of course, you see where this is going. My leg felt fine (and still does a couple of days after the climb), but as we hiked to the hut we noticed what seemed like quite a lot of snow up high above about 2500 m. In retrospect, this wasn't surprising, given it had rained in Zurich the previous week, but between work and a bout with a stomach bug (shades of my UTMB experience but at least this time it was something I caught from my son, and I wasn't vomiting for nearly as long), I hadn't made the obvious connection that it was probably snowing up high.
When we got the hut, Josh struck up a conversation with a trio of young climbers who had just finished our intended route up the Mittelgrat and down the Tscheppband. They had climbed in boots but had not taken crampons or ice axes. They had completed the route but hinted that they were a bit sketched out without the proper snow gear. We were the first to the hut, but soon the shoe rack filled up with mountaineering boots, next to Josh's approach shoes and my trail runners.
We had a nice dinner and chatted a little bit with tablemates, 2 Swiss teams of two both attempting the same route, 75% of them wearing the same Dynafit jacket (the new Mammut, it seems).
I had some serious pre-climb jitters before going to sleep, worrying about not having boots or crampons, my leg, and whether I'd recovered and rehydrated well enough from the week.
Things looks brighter in the morning, with some coffee and a relatively leisurely breakfast time of 5 am. Josh said he felt optimistic, and we left the hut around 6 am, well behind the three or four other parties ahead of us. We passed one pair on the hike up, as the trail turned to shallow snow with a boot track, as we approached the start of the route, on a prominent rib on the right side of a broad couloir next to the peak, above a small glacier. This part had looked very snowy from below but turned out to be trivial, shallow snow, not firmed up enough to really require crampons (though I was happy to have the axe).
We roped up and Josh belayed me up a single move before we scrambled a bit further. The next section to the belay station seemed to have the option of moving left off the ridge into a wet and snowy section, or staying directly on the ridge which was steeper. Josh led the direct option, but it was muddy and loose in places. Even following this I was gripped and was panting hard when I got to the belay station.
The weather had been clear, but intermittent clouds started to form now, quite impressive to watch as the air flowed up the smooth bowl over the Glarus Thrust which slices through the mountain, about where we were standing.
We traversed left through snow, and Josh used our cams to build an intermediate anchor at a convenient place below the snow. He then led what was probably the crux pitch, technically, a pair of cracks, well-protected (once you clipped the first one) by two bolts, leading back up to a ridge. My hands were numb from the cold by the end, but I felt I was re-earning my alpine climbing qualifications, as I cunningly employed my butt, my knee, and several hand jams (a convenient technique when you can't feel your hands!) to ooze my way up.
Things got a lot more fun after this, as we were on warmer and mostly dry rock. Josh led a long pitch, the first half of which we simul'd (and didn't really need to rope up for, but I was still feeling very conservative as I haven't done this type of climb in many years). He placed a micro traxion before the steeper part, and belayed me up. A couple more pitches of very fun, easy climbing led us to the ridge proper of the mountain, with a view to the other side, and the striking summit block.
We carefully downclimbed muddy class 3 terrain before a quick class 2 scramble to the base of the summit block. We found we had timed things perfectly, as the last of the teams ahead of us was rapping off as we arrived. We confirmed the direction of the descent route with them before they left (some with crampons). The summit block is pure plaisir, steep but juggy, with bolts everywhere (watch out for some loose blocks to the left though) - you pop out right on top of the tower next to the Gipfelkreuz!
We feared the crux of the day was still before us, though, as the descent is rated T5 (out of 6), and the conditions were expected to be sloppy. The high "T" (hiking) ratings in Switzerland can often be the sketchiest ones, especially in suboptimal conditions, because they so often involve steep and unprotectable dirt, grass, mud, slush, and loose rock. The descent down to the big traverse of the Tscheppband indeed was the second-grippingest part of the day, involve some very slow and careful facing-in downclimbing on mud and snow in a small gulley, usually but not always able to get decent plunges with my ice axe. I could imagine the axeless youths the day before having no fun with this part.
We made a long traverse on snow to a saddle near the Tschepp, and descended some steep snow and then scree back down to the bowl below the peak, where we enjoyed a lateish lunch before hiking back to the hut. All in all, Josh commented that our gear choices had been good. We'd used a couple of the cams as an intermediate anchor, and most of the slings and biners came in handy. The snow had been soft enough that boots and crampons wouldn't have made a huge difference, in the end.
On the hike out, Josh managed to snag us a hitchhiking ride on the long road down to Tamins. Combined with a fortuitously late train, we made it back to Zurich by about 6 pm, in time to order pizza!
Strava activity of most of the route above the Ringelspitzhütte