On Saturday a buddy and me made a short trip to Switzerland to tackle the Fürenwand fixed rope route. We started at 6.30 AM and reached Engelberg in central Switzerland after a 180 km drive 2 hours later. Already from the parking lot near the small cable car station that leads to the Fürenalpe refuge we got an impressive look at our route.




The Fürenwand is a 600m high cliff and the route basically climbs almost vertically up the mountain for most of the time. From a climbing point of view it's not a very difficult route although it's extremely steep, requires quite a bit of physical endurance as well as familiarity with great heights.

After a short 20 minute walk we reach the start of the fixed rope route, put on our safety gear and start climbing.



Up, always up... sometimes the cliff is actually a bit overhanging, which really puts some strain on your arm muscles.



For my buddy it's the 1st really steep route, so we take our time and I repeatedly make sure he's OK and enjoying the action.

Yeah, that's actually the "path".



It's just one of several such traverses, and looking down definitely gets your heart beating a bit faster...



A bit of an optical illusions due to weird camera angle: the cliff's essentially vertical.



After about 1 1/2 hours we reach the Jägerband, a small wooded horizontal recess where we rest a bit for a tasty Brotzeit and enjoy the scenery.



We climb on and arrive at another traverse, this one's actually a bit tricky since both the security cable and the metal steps are rather slick from water. We really take our time with that one since by now it's a 400-meter drop straight down.



Looking down...



Looking up; the final step of the route is a 20m steel cable ladder which, the photo doesn't really show it, is overhanging a slight bit. Very nasty. We wonder a bit why the other climbers obviously take so long to climb that ladder, we're about to find out soon enough...



One more traverse...



Then, after about 3 hrs, we reach the ladder. The instability of the ladder together with the slight overhang makes for some seriously exhausting climbing. Every 2-3 steps I hook in an elbow into the ladder to rest the other arm. It takes us a good 5 minutes to climb the ladder and we're both happy when we finally reach the top.



Then we just follow the trail to the Fürenalpe...



... and celebrate the tour with a well-deserved Weissbier!





Really enjoyed the tour, we both had a great time.

Unfortunately I couldn't take pics of all the awesome views because more often than not it just wasn't possible to handle the camera and still be in a safe position.


Still, hope you enjoy the pics.

Wow, what a trip!

Wow, impressive. Better you than me, mate.

Awesome climb, thanks for sharing the pictures.

Good lord, and then you have to climb back down!

No, thank god!



You don't climb that route down. You either take another route (to walk) down or (as we did) take the cable car.

It is beautiful...and I need to change my pants. I don't like height very much.

Soooooo awesome. Book my flight!

If you would ask me the answer would be No!

But i'm glad you took a camera with you to take such beautiful images.

Well done.

Beautiful! Just beautiful!

I love the pictures from your trips Para_Bellum! Beautiful country.

Great pictures PB.


Wheels

Fantastic!

Yea, I couldn't do mountain climbing, just a bit too crazy for me to handle! Fun to see your views in nice pics like that though.

Switzerland really is a beautiful place...one of my favorite places on earth is the walking bridge in Lucern, with hundreds of hand carved depictions of events, all hand painted too. Destroyed in the mid-90's, they rebuilt it, AFAIK. The small city is surrounded by a lake and some of the biggest mountains in Europe.

Nice! Looks like a much steeper and much longer version of the climb up Half Dome.

The Fürenwand is about 25km South of Luzern, we actually drove through the city to get to our destination. And yes, the Vierwaldstätter See is beautiful, with some of the surrounding mountains rising up more than 2.000 m from the lake shores.



Much steeper indeed.



I climbed the Half Dome a couple of years ago and it's basically a somewhat steep walkway.


Funny thing is in all my years of mountaineering I've never actually fell into my safety harness. And I certainly do not intend to. But I wouldn't climb this route without one for a million dollars.

Oh yeah, you'd be nuts to climb that route without safety gear.

That is insane!

Never done any climbing myself, but I get the willies just looking at that!

How is Switzerland this time of year? My GF and I are off to Wengen in about 2 weeks.

Wengen? Near Eiger, Mönch and Jungfrau? I envy you, beautiful region. Should be the perfect time of the year for a holiday in that area. Make sure to include a trip with the Jungfraujoch mountain railway. Can get a bit crowded but the peak station at ~3.500m is definitely worth a visit.

I keep looking at picture # 7.

That's stunningly beautiful. A village in a valley with mountains rising above it, clear blue skies above.

Looks so peaceful.

Thank you so much for these pictures.

Great to know, thanks!

It's an amazing place, I've been there more times than I can remember, after you find somewhere like that you rarely look elsewhere for a mountain holiday!

I'll be sure to get some photos

Brilliant Parra ! Awesome shots, what a wicked climb!

I'm looking forward to seeing them, enjoy your holiday!

Nice job. Have a cookie.



well.. maybe not