Kleine and Grosse Fermeda attempts

Published on 2007-6-11 by Michael Stanton

Kleine and Grosse Fermeda attempts

June 11, 2007

I road the lift up to Seceda from St. Ulrich at the ridiculously late hour of 8 am. The weather was beautiful for the moment. First I tried to climb a grade IV route on the Kleine Fermeda, but the wet grass and mud on the first 3 pitches scared me away. It was truly scary, as everything was slippery from rain the night before. I had to leave two slings on horns to rappel down.

Discouraged, I thought I'd hike up the Sas Rigais instead. But then I realized the back side of my Kleine Fermeda topo had a tiny line drawing of the normal route on the Grosse Fermeda. At grade III it should be easy. So I found the approximate starting point, and worked my way up gullies and short faces for about 1000 feet. The weather was getting worse, and I especially debated continuing when I had to traverse a long and very exposed grade II-III slabby face. At one point I went up too soon, and found myself on probably grade IV+ terrain in tennis shoes. At that moment it started to rain. Beautiful!

Moving quickly left I got back on route, where I was right below a black face that needed to be climbed straight up to then continue on to the summit. I guess I was about 3/4 of the way up. But with the rain, it would be a race against the rock getting slippery to get down. I descended, then made a descending traverse to get back to the relative safety of the chimneys and gullies that made up the lower half of the route.

On the climb I came across two nice ring bolts, and three slings around Sanduhrs here and there. I never used them because the rock still wasn't completely soaked and I could go faster downclimbing. Finally, in very heavy rain I used the last ring bolt for a rappel in the first grade III chimney. More downclimbing, then a long walk back up to the Seceda lift to get back to town.

I kept hoping to go back and finish the route in the following days, but it never worked out. It was a fun, easy, but exciting climb all the same. It tests your routefinding skills gently.

Taken from a hike to the Grosse Fermeda. June, 2007.

AIRY VIEWS ON THE GROSSE FERMEDA. Look down on the steep scrambling of the Grosse Fermeda. Or don't!

The clouds gather in as I wonder if I should descend on the Grosse Fermeda.

Unpleasant traverse. The clouds roll in as I traverse left and up on the normal route of the Grosse Fermeda (YDS 5.5 here). Oh great, now it's raining :-).