Siggenthaler Flue

I have lived in Baden for a few years, and have during that time slowly developed a love/hate relationship with one of my local climbing cliffs – Siggenthaler Flue. I love the close proximity, the steep continuous routes in the sixth grade and the view when you climb out of the shadow of the trees and into the last red rays of light from the setting sun. And I hate that it to some extent is a loose pile of shit.

It is not really that rocks pull off when you climb; it is more that every spring we play a game of memory, trying to figure out what holds are now missing. I think a part of Criesifest went missing some years ago, and the hole underneath Weisser Hobow definitely got bigger after a heavy summer rain storm. Last year a bolt was missing from the Rot-gelbe route, and of course the big block it was stuck in. I didn’t recognize it on the ground, but I remember distinctly pulling up on it thinking I would never have placed a bolt in something that detached. The route is still there, barring a bolt or two and with a major new guillotine in the middle. I recommend something different.

And then this year, we walked the steep path up a Tuesday after work. Avoided sliding in the mud while thinking about the routes to climb and reclimb. That 6b+ I never freed last year should be easy now. Except that it is gone. Siggenthalerflue has once again upped the ante and thrown away what looks like 3 times 5 square meters of rock, lets guess a good six cubic meters of stone. Laying waste to the threes at the ground and turning the routes from Rageboge to Coolman into alpine training ground. Loose, unclimbed and unprotected. We stuck to more solid routes that day, leading into the light with solemn thoughts about the dangerous games we choose to play.

I guess what I am trying to say is, take care; in the long run gravity beats rock.

And that the small three in the corner broke as well.