UKC

Hi all,

I'm thinking of doing the North Ridge of Piz Badile sometime in the next few weeks. I know the approach involves crossing some snow fields (but presumably no crevassed glaciers). Are there enough snow crossings to require an ice axe and crampons?

Also if anyone has advice on the descent it would be appreciated. I'm probably climbing on double 50m ropes and am relatively efficient on abseils so I'm leaning towards abseiling off.

In reply to kheegan: Hi, we did another day in Paradise 10 days ago and abbed down north ridge and no axe or crampons where needed for the approach or abbing down the North Ridge. The remaining small snow patches are easily circumvented or crossed without.
Enjoy!!

In reply to kheegan:


If you approach from the Capanna Sciora, you won't cross any permanent snow patches at all, as far as I can remember.

In reply to kheegan: We did the north ridge a couple of weeks ago. There is a small snow field at the base of the route but its easy to avoid so you don't need to take ice axe or campons.

Lewis

In reply to kheegan: we did it a few weeks ago , no need for poons or axe, and no need on the italien side have fun!!

In reply to kheegan:

I guess just to reiterate what others have said, my buddy and I did the North Ridge in perfect conditions on July 18th and the approach + conditions were excellent and I just had a small pack-away grivel walking pole. If interested you can view a short film of the Nordkante showing the conditions, approach and all on the following link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25P5WJVV-MU&feature=plcp
We took the easier descent into Italy and the Gianetti Hut but it still was a bit of a ballache as route finding was not always obvious (look for the big ab rings and disregard the places were there is tat!) + we had only a single rope and some of the abs (into the obvious couloir a 100M or so from the summit and from the iron cross near the end of the descent) required doubles IMHO. Thankfully some kind Swiss folks let us use a couple of their abs! We were very lucky and our mate drove round to Italy and met us at the Gianetti so we did not have to walk over the 2 passes back to the Sasc Fura. Another option is the Swiss walked back down as well and took a taxi (very expensive) back to Bondo. However quite a few parties who had completed the Cassin + Another Day abbed down the North ridge but I reckon it would take a long, long while...

In reply to Tim Chappell:


Tim, the path from the Sciora is closed due to some huge rockfall that occurred in December and it is continuing to throw rocks down from the scar everyday for the foreseeable future.

In reply to Heike:


Yep Heike spot on advice! The Viale path is shut due to the ma-hoosive rockfall on Piz Cengalo. When my buddy and I were on the Bügeleisen a few weeks ago there was a more or less continuous bombardment of large, bad stuff coming down so folks you can get to the aforementioned route safely but please avoid the path from Pizzi Gemelli onwards to the Col Viale!

Does anyone know if you need an axe/crampons to return via the Trubinasca pass from the Italian to the Swiss side ?

In reply to kheegan: we did this a few weeks ago there is a long steep snow field on the down side of the first pass you can avoid this by coming down through loose rock and scree on the right hand side looking down, no need for poons, no snow on descent of tribenisca pass, enjoy!!!