Queuing On Cassin

Piz Badile viewed from Bondo in the valley. Cassin Route is in the shadow and the North Ridge is clearly visible on the right of the shadow

Time for a holiday. Myself and Matt Leggett arrived in Bondo, in Switzerland, last week and quickly got excited about the Cassin Route on Piz Badile. The people we met told us we had just arrived at the end of a very wet number of days. We had a block of good weather days to look forward too - brilliant luck.

The upper section of the Cassin Route on the NE face of Piz Badile

The Sasc Fura Hut was full at 1904m. We chose to bivvy higher up intending to get an early morning head start on all the Hut teams. Unfortunately there were lots of other teams bivvying with the same idea! We did an evening recce, and found teams bivvying everywhere.

The lower section of the Cassin route

We got started well before dawn, but as we left the bivvy, we realised we were in a train of teams all heading up for the routes. Some teams were heading for the 'North Ridge', others 'Another day in Paradise', but most were heading towards the 'Cassin Route'. As we put the rope on and did the abseil on the approach, I counted that we were team 7 !! In the next hour, I counted 7 other teams behind us! Everybody was attempting to overtake and jostle for position.

Early in the morning, just after dawn, the Rebuffat Diedre 5a. It was damp and saw many people falling off it.

At the first 5a diedre (above), we established our position. I stood behind a second about to move off, ready to lead - as an Italian Guide pushed in and proceeded to lead up! So I started climbing! Immediately behind me a woman overtook the entire queuing crowd and started to climb. I've never heard such Italian abuse. She fell 4m and got a cheer! As I climbed through the top of the wet corner, I couldn't move because people were standing on and pulling my rope! Eventually I could run off to the belay.

The queuing at the bottom of the Rebuffat Diedre. There was some queuing, but also some blatant pushing in. A female Italian pushed in and got the most abuse from the Italian crowd. When she fell 4m, she got a cheer!

Matt had to second and push through the climbing (and sometimes falling) crowds on the pitch. By now, 2 Italian guides had overtaken us, so we started moving together and made up another 2 places, by overtaking pitching teams.

Count the ropes! This is the 4a easy diagonal crack section. Here there was a lot of jostling for position. We moved up a few places by moving together.

We eventually got to the 3a crack where we found everybody had become stationary, and sat down! In front of us, as far as we could see, there were people sat down, and as we looked at our position, teams started arriving behind us jockeying for position.

Looking back down the diagonal crack, at the teams hot on our heels

An easy 3a section turned into a sitting queue. The teams built up behind us.

We sat precisely next to the team in front to give no space for the predatory teams behind. But even this didn't stop the team behind us from climbing OVER us to get ahead. It was at this point that we had had enough. One of the guides that earlier overtook us, turned back and retreated, telling us it may be a 12 hour ascent to the summit with a summit bivvi!

In front of us I estimated about 7 teams

After about an hour of sitting, waiting, watching the sun come further up and watching these alpine crazy antics we decided to retreat. The Greek team just in front of us (shown in photo above) carried on - with about 500ml of water and little food! 2 days later in late evening we met the Greek team at the campsite - they were looking broken! They had completed the Cassin Route, in 12 hours. Improvised bivvied on the summit (with other teams), and descended the North Ridge the next day - making it to the Hut for their first water in nearly 2 days. The next day they made it to the campsite. All of this news made me happy we had made the right decision.

Abseiling off, very disappointed

Retreating along the ledges. This block of hard snow had to be negotiated by passing below. Only 2 days later, the entire block collapsed and went down the mountain, there was nobody passing beneath at the time

As we got to the notch on the North Ridge we stopped to think about the next few days, and made a bit of a plan. It had been really hard work to carry all our stuff up the hill, so didn't want to carry it down again to the car, before the rack and rope had visited the top of Piz Badile. So we made a stash at the exact start of the North Ridge, and ran back down to the car (1200m below) , for a campsite BBQ to make up for a disappointing day.