UKC

Hello.

Could anybody tell me whether either of these routes are generally speaking quick to clear of snow/dry after bad weather has passed?

Cheers,
Tom

In reply to Tom Last:

Salbit certainly is - steep, clean, exposed granite needs just a puff of breeze.

Would expect Badile to be the same.

In reply to Tom Last:

Not sure about the Badile (retreated off that in heavy rain a few years ago), but I concur on the Salbit. I climbed it last summer and it was tipping down as we walked in to the hut the night before and well into the night. We were on the route (Takala into the Sudgrat) at sunrise the next morning and bar the first pitch of Takala (which was pretty gopping in places but climbable with a bit of thought) it was lovely and dry. It's a phenomenal route, well deserving of all the hype - enjoy!

In reply to Tom Last:

That's good to hear. Thanks very much both.

Tom

In reply to Tom Last:

We climbed the Badile (albeit quite a few years ago now) the day after a big thunderstorm and heavy downpours and it had dried out just fine.

In reply to Tom Last:
The Badile gets the morning sun so does seem to dry quickly after thunderstorms. There were teams on the Cassin the day after a big downpour (large streams cascading down the face sort of thing). Some of the cracks were reported to be wet. We did it a day later and it was almost entirely dry. Of course that only works if the sun is out. The NR would be similar. It was certainly dry when we abbed / downclimbed it later that day after the Cassin.

In reply to Tom Last:

We had to sit in the Salbit hut for a whole miserable day of heavy torrential rain - but the next day it was a sunny morning and the rock was basically bone dry by the time we had eaten breakfast and walked in from the hut.

In reply to Tom Last:

Just wanted to say a quick thanks to everybody on this thread who helped us decide to head for the Piz Badile and ultimately for us to salvage one day climbing from what was otherwise a very wet week in the Alps.
It rained torrentially the day prior to our attempt, then on off until about 2am on the day. Away from the hut by 4am the route was dry and we made quick progress up to and on the ridge proper. Unfortunately a cool cloudy day and further spindrift hitting the upper part of the ridge itself meant that the upper part of the ridge looked more like a hard Scottish mixed ridge than a summer rock route, so we bailed. A quick glimpse of the summit from the track out later that day confirmed our suspicions that the ridge wasn't to clear fully that day and we were out of time. Still a nice alpine day on a wonderful mountain was had, so for that, thank you all.

Tom