Warm Tempetures in Kandersteg

Today we headed into Staubbach to look at "Blue Magic" and "Rubezahl", both great routes and very popular. walking in we were concearned due to how warm it was, the lines didnt seem to promicing so we decided to make our way back down to Oeschinenwald where we come across "Rattenpissoir" WI5+, a nice looking line in a corner up to a hanging pillar, there was a another team at the bottom of the route, they had just backed off due to the second pitch runnng with water, we decided to give it a go and see what it was like, Scott wanted to lead the first pitch with meant I would be tackling the wet hanging piller on the second pitch.



After gearing up scott headed on up the first pitch looking good on the lead, loosing his head a little halfway up the pitch was a little worrying but after taking a few minutes to get is composure back he pushed on up in fine style to the ice cave belay, I followed on up, the climbing not to hard but very steep...Halfway Up the route I was completely soaked through from the falling water from the ice piller above, i moved on up to the belay where scott was drenched through standing under a shower of water, straight away I knew we were going no further, We were both soaked through, the piller was breaking away and very unstable, we decided to stack it.., we set an ice thread and abseiled safely off the route to the bottom. Although we didnt complete the route.. today was still pretty entertaining.


Pete and rob were also out today and climbed the line next to us, A WI5 called "Arbonium",they too had to abandone the last pitch due to poor conditions.

Lets hope the tempertures drop over night and we see some of these routes forming again...

"Rattenpissoir" WI5+

Rob on First pitch of "Arbonium", WI5

Rob on First pitch of "Arbonium", WI5

Scott on pitch 1 of "Rattenpissoir" WI5+