GÖSCHENERALP, CENTRAL SWITZERLAND

SALBITSCHIJEN

WESTERN ARETE

The pleasure of climbing. On and on. Completing thirty pitches, that’s great, because after a while you don’t look at the topo any more. You just say to yourself at that point: we’re half way and that’s all.
Get over a step, a second one, then a third. Climb up a section of slabs, cross a forest of ribs, navigate another obstacle… Hesitate in face of an overhang, think of those who were the first to pass by there, and discover, just alongside, a hidden crack. Climb on the knife edge where others have taken a lower ledge. Dance on those spikes of granite on rock that cuts like a knife. Straddling the western Salbitschijen arete is the sheer pleasure of freedom. It’s like tracing a garland around this marvellous mountain. The only weakness: not wanting all this to stop. Even worse: not wanting to climb down again once you have reached the peak. So you can stay on there, a little bit more, in the middle of the world.

KEY INFORMATION