Fun Climbs Around The World

Matt, at 1,235 meters

Several people asked about camping in Europe. We’ve camped in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Spain and France. We found the best camping in Spain- pretty sites, great views, and the most amenities for the price (hot showers!). A difference between the US and Europe: on the continent, in many places, no one minds if you camp in a farmer’s field for the night. I traveled to six climbing areas in three countries with a group of German climbers, and we’d climb all day, drive ‘til late to the next climbing area, and pull up to the nearest empty field and pitch a tent.
No one ever bothered us, and they told me they do it all the time.

View from Matt toward Brüggler

Here’s our (admittedly limited) experience:
Switzerland: We camped at a mountain hut named “Matt”, near the base of the Brüggler.
Fees were:
Parking, per day: Euro 3.50
Tent, per night: Euro 7.50
Sleeping in hut: Euro 3.00
Tent, per person: Euro 1.50
Which amounted to Euro 14.00 per night for the two of us in one tent. This was a private campground, run by the Alpkorporation Vorderschwändi, basically the town / village owners. The owners of the land up the road from the hut had working dairy farms and grazed their cows in the meadows across the street. At night hundreds of cowbells, from large, deep ones to smaller higher-pitched bells, lulled us to sleep.

View across valley from Matt

The hut had toilets, an outdoor sink with cold running water, and a small room indoors with tables and chairs. We cooked inside on the rainy days and ate outside on sunny days. It’s the best campsite we found near here (the Schwändital, near the town of Näfels). We headed east from Zürich on 3 toward Sargans and the south on 17 toward Glarus. This isn’t a major tourist area, but a small climbing area where my father enjoyed climbing. An English couple stayed here to climb and said it was also the best camping they’d found in the nearby mountains.

Please comment if you’d like to share favorite camping areas in Europe. Click the red number right of the title to comment.

A typical Swiss “Brunnen”

A friend asked me where we’d go this summer. Tristan graduates from high school on May 24 and we’re going on a long road trip. This summer we’ll head to Tuolomne Meadows and the Sierra Nevada and then up to Squamish Chief, Canada.
We climbed at Squamish last year and Tristan declared it to be one of his two favorite places in North America, along with the Indian Creek / Moab area. When it gets too cold in Squamish, we’ll head down to the desert, and then maybe to Portrero Chico, Mexico.
We’ll winter in Summit County and work in ski school and then in March we head to Australia, Nepal in April, Turkey in May (Chad talked us into checking out his favorite places in Turkey, which he says has as good, if not better climbing than Greece but cheaper eats and sleeps).
Then in late May we head to Spain, then Germany to visit family and a side trip to Switzerland, only 2 hours or so from my cousin’s place in Waiblingen, Germany.
Two summers ago we camped at Matt and climbed nearby at the Brüggler and the Gallerie. We used the Brunnen, or spring, as our refrigerator. The water coming from deep underground stayed quite cold and we’d put our fresh pasta, mozzarella, and yogurt containers in the Brunnen for the day while climbing. Sleeping on top of that long grass provided some of the softest camping we had anywhere. Weekdays we had the campsite to ourselves; Swiss and German climbers headed up for the weekend.

Approach to the Gallerie

This definitely beat the approach to the Brüggler! We’d hop out of the car, go under the tunnel and climb the stairs so that we were on top of the road. Despite the proximity of traffic, the thick concrete kept the noise from penetrating and climbing above roaring cars remained surprisingly serene. Plus, it was nice and level so we could easily lie down and sunbathe on the rare days when we had some sun (this is in July!)

Some enterprising locals had carried up a nice wooden bench with backrests and armrests, so we could belay sitting in style if we wanted to climb the routes near the bench. Unfortunately, most of the climbs in good sitting range were somewhat above even Tristan’s abilities, never mind mine!

After climbing, we’d head to the nearby village of Näfels to watch the Tour de France at the Sportzentrum. The Sportzentrum was like a very fancy gym plus gourmet restaurant; clearly the most modern building in town and somewhat the social center. We got to watch the Tour in the restaurant on their huge TV because it played at a time that was past lunch and too early for dinner. So as long as I bought Tristan lots of Karamelköpfli (a fancy crème brulee or flan-like dessert) or his other favorite Swiss desserts (which include Pfaffenhütchen, a triangular pastry filled with nuts; Vögelnestli, and Gipfeli, a filled croissant) they were happy to allow us to sit and watch the Tour.

Tristan leading at the Gallerie

We camped near the Brüggler in a small meadow by a Swiss alpine hut named “Matt”, at 1,235 meters, with a spring, toilets, and tables for eating and cooking both inside and outside. However, since our first night we’d listened to loud thunder crashing around us, and been almost blinded by lightning flashing much too close for comfort, we opted to sport climb instead of hiking up toward the Brüggler and starting up a long climb.

The Gallerie was one of those typical small European cliffs that all the locals climb at but no one comes from very far. They all wondered why we would bother to climb here when we were so far away. Well, for one thing, we didn’t want to go up on a bigger climb at higher altitude in what seemed pretty threatening weather.

Also, the quality of the rock was superb. We climbed on a dark limestone with lots of little side-pulls and edges, quite different fro the pockets we’d gotten used to in Spain. We found several of the climbs surprisingly difficult for their grade and heard from some locals that they climbed here every week and had gotten the routes totally wired.

Despite struggling on what we thought were grades we should be able to climb, we loved the rock. The Gallerie also had the most unique approach—via a staircase up to the roof of a tunnel above the local road!

We

Schwändital below the Brüggler

This spring reminds me of our climbs last summer in Switzerland — all that green grass after rain. We camped up the hill from the valley above near the the Brüggler, a pleasant limestone face with numerous easy routes (plus some harder ones)! It’s near Näfels, south of Zürich.
We met a German friend, Günther, to climb a 5 - 8 pitch route on the Brüggler. (How many pitches long depends on how many you run together)!

We camped on a small, but grassy and very soft meadow beside a Swiss mountain hut. A spring nearby provided not only water but also a type of refrigeration: we’d stick our food in the water during the day to keep it cool. The hut was open for cooking in case of rain (frequent, in Switzerland) and they allowed climbers to sleep on the floor.

The cows, each with its own bell, grazed on the meadow across the dirt road and at night we’d go to sleep to the tolling of dozens of cow bells, from small high-pitched bells to large, deep bells. We saw foxes and a type of deer. We had some of the most beautiful camping here, and enjoyed it so much that we stayed here and drove to nearby climing areas rather than move to another place.
After climbing at the Brüggler, we headed to do some sport climbing at the Gallerie. We figured that we can always climb good quality granite back in the states, but top quality limestone sport climbing seems way better in Europe.