Trettachspitze - Traverse with Mari (northeast ridge up, northwestridge down)

 I unfortunately had to cancel my planned trip to Latvia, but today I was able to take comfort in my beautiful home: the Allgäu. And since one of my best firends, Mari, the "Quatschimann" is in town at the moment, we decided to climb one of the Allgäu's classics: the Trettachspitze. Not very hard in difficutly, it is still an alpine climb and Maris first.

So, here a few pictures:

Mari checking out the topo during a short rest with the mountain to climb in the background

Another one of the Allgäu's distinctive mountains: the Höfats

Mari on the first bealy

Mari following the second pitch

Mari lead the third pitch. Props for that!

Fooling around on one of the belays

Viva Italia, Mario!

On the summit. Not allone though...

That was fun: a party of five rapelling down the northwest ridge after us

Enjoying this awesome landscape with the Trettach in the background

Me with a wet behind: hard snow field ride down from the Trettachspitze

Last pic, nice tour.

If any of you guys want to know more about this lovely peak, check out Walter Hölzler's article. He writes about the first ascent of the Trettach Spitze and a route through it's east face: the Lobenhoffer Route:
http://www.bergzeit.de/magazin/trettachspitze-ostwand/

Field Trip to Switzerland

Alright: I haven't written anything in a long time, because there hasn't been much to write about, at least nothing about climbing and traveling. But I hope this will change this summer.

Anyway: I've just come back from a university field trip to beautiful Switzerland. We have mainly been to the Upper Engadine and the Valais. I'm sorry, but I really am not in the mood, to write a lot, so here a some expressions, after I tell you one more thing:

After not being in the mountains for over half a year, Switzerland really got me hooked again.

Unfortunately, since I was there with university, I was not able to climb any of those beautiful giants of rock and ice.

The beatiful Bianco Ridge from both sides.

Piz Roseg. Poiting to the left it's North-Eastface.

St. Moritz

Geographers in the field.

View of the famous Matterhorn from Zermatt

And since I discovered the panorama-feature on my almost-new camera, a few shots, taken with this feature: