Balmhorn, verticality training

Balmhorn canyon

Dal piano alla verticalità totale, il "sentiero" si trova sulla parete di destra...

Costruito metro per metro ed abbarbicato alla roccia, porta ad un rifugio base per salite alpinistiche

Esposizione...

L'inizio promette bene, questo canyon è già stato sceso da altri amici

Le Alpi sono sempre un belvedere

Thomas, grande appassionato

Passaggio interessante, il canyon invece di continuare dritto dov'è logico
ha perforato la parete a destra modificando il percorso dell'acqua

Ancora calate tranquille

Si comincia a verticalizzare, ottimo training per il viaggio alla Reunion !

Le ragazze ci danno dentro

Una 100 metri...

Ancora 100 metri per toccare il fondovalle

Vista sulla Gasteretal a monte di Kandersteg, ci sono almeno 5 canyon qui in giro

Questo lo faremo il prossimo weekend

Notare la particolare "S" formata dalle pieghe della roccia

Fulbach

Fulbach

Descent of half of this huge and vertical canyon

We are deep in the Kandersteg valley (Gasteretal), we have on both sides of us huge limestone walls, each mountain is about 2300 meter higher than the valley floor, on one side the Doldenhorn (above), on the other the Balmhorn, we can't see the summits from here. The canyon is 1/3 on the left in picture, dropping down in these walls.

The Balmhorn side, no sun is coming down here in this season !

A sign is warning us where we want to park, it's not very safe !!!

Anyway we start scrambling our way up, there is a trail but it's not clear for which purpose it was made ! Maybe a hunter's trail, very little anyway.
We will start the descent at the base of an 80 m waterfall coming down from the upper canyon, see center of the picture, just after this tower.

We go in this couloir between this tower and the walls, there is a rope to help, some other guides put it.

We start rappelling, the good thing is that we have some sun at this altitude

The canyon is sometimes open sometimes deep and narrow

We are 4 of us: Stephanie, in the picture, Laurence above, Holzi and me.

No more sun for us now, i forgot my neoprene socks so i'm barefoot in my canyoneer and try to avoid the water contact....

A longer rappel, we can see the road down but the way is still very long

The beginning of a very nice slot section, there are some arches and other nice features, i did some pictures but
being an unlucky day i drown my camera during some action....

Well, the main difficulty of this canyon is that, for the complete descent, you need to walk up about 4 h on a hunters-goat trail very steep and sometimes exposed, then you have a very long descent that is not suitable for big group, and with a higher fall of 80 meters. Next, it is not possible in summer because the glacier above is south facing and the water flow is always too high. So at the end of the season you have the right water but very short days.

Oeschinen

Undere Oeschinenbach

Nice exploration above this beautiful lake near Kandersteg

There are 4-5 canyon around this lake, the Oeschinensee, most of them have
glaciers above so we are here in fall for this exploration with low water level, the sun is only on the other side of the valley...

Upper sections of these canyons, some are not yet explored

This limestone layer is immediately nicely carved, happy !

Clean, and cold, water and good rock, that's perfect, even if the flow is very little.

Nice carvings 

A short connection section

Uuhh Manu...soo hard to fix a bolt !!!

We split the longer rappels at 60-70 meters to make rappelling the rope easier

We really appreciate the view !

Still no sunshine for us...

Before the end this big rappel goes trough this arch-hole in the rock.

To finish the trip we have to swim 500 meters in the lake to go back to the trail !