2024-08-10
The normal route on Vrenelisgärtli (2905m) is a classic easy mountaineering tour near Zurich. Vrenelisgärtli is one of three main peaks of the Glärnish massif, which dominates the Zurich skyline on clear winter days. It is a strong contender for most Swiss-ly named mountain, as it has not one but two of the diminuitive "-li"s, the naming meaning "Little Verena's little garden", and it comes with a folk tale of how Vreneli died in a snowstorm for not bringing the cows down when she should have in the fall. Verena is a common Swiss name, after a third century saint. The route crosses a low angle glacier and then follows a ridge to the summit.
With a weekend of perfect conditions (if maybe a little hot down low), we took buses and trains up to Richisau in the Klöntal, where we began our hike. There is a nice kiosk on the way to the hut where you can get Rivella and (in theory) can book an "alpine taxi" to avoid the first part of the hike. We had a nice stay in the newly-renovated Glärnischhütte, marred only by brutally hot conditions in the dining room at dinner and in the shared dormitory: please people, keep the windows open in the summer!
The repeated the route from our ill-fated previous attempt on Vrenelisgärtli, planned for after our Bos Fülen climb but instead ending up being terrified flight from a thunderstorm.
We were the first out from the hut at 4:05 am. The most difficult part of the climb was the initial section in the dark, navigating some loose steep hiking trails, and shivering a bit at the foot of the glacier, transitioning into crampons and roping up. Things got nice as we moved efficiently up the easy glacier, first on bare ice with a few small crevasses, and then on snow, moving through one section of bare rock where the glacier has melted away.
I had been most nervous about a steep via ferrata section dropping down over the main ridge for about 30m to give access to the summit ridge. We brought via ferrata kits for this, except for the leader who just used the end of the climbing rope as a single point of protection. Even given the ample staples and pins, plus solid rock from thousands of climbers cleaning the route by their passage, this was trivial as the usual cables were instead chains, allowing one the option to clip into a link instead of around the whole chain, thus not risking the usual factor-greater-than-two falls possible on a via ferrata.
The ridge to the summit had some long drops to the right in some places, but was very easy except for a couple of class 3 moves, which we avoided on the way down by taking an easier, but looser, route further to the left of the steep part.
We were not the first on the summit, because a party had slept there! We met them on their way down, and hat the summit to ourselves at 7:25 am. We soaked in the fantastic views of countless alpine peaks, from our 2905m vantage, then headed back down.
The via ferrata is helpfully two via ferratas, one up and one down, so the retreat was also simple and we made it back to the hut at about 10:00 am. We walked all the way back as our reservation with the alpine taxi didn't work out (we met it coming up, as we were hiking down, and the driver said the reservation had been written down wrong, and they though we wanted a ride uphill, not downhill). We enjoyed some ice cream at the hotel next to the Klöntal, Plätz bus stop and headed back to Zurich.
This was a great reintroduction to mountaineering, the first time in quite a while putting on crampons and roping up. I can't wait to do it again!
