Salbit Südgrat Rope Solo
Salbitchejin granite is as good rock as you'll get anywhere. Last season I climbed the striking West ridge, perhaps the king-line of adventure climbing in Switzerland.
Across from that route is another beautiful line. The South ridge might not be quite as long or as difficult as its neighbor, but with 25 pitches; and a crux of 6a, it still looked like a great day out. I knew I would be back at some point to climb it. However, I didn't expect to use it as a debut at rope soloing!
This season was off to a pretty poor start with lots of warm storm cycles bringing constant rain to the Alps. I had just decided to stay in Switzerland and postpone my mountain guides course one more year due to the Covid situation in New Zealand. It wasn't an easy decision, and I told myself I could only justify staying if I took every opportunity to be in the mountains to further my skills. The weather put some pressure on this mindset, and I missed two climbable days because I couldn't find a partner in time. This led to me standing alone at the crag with my rope and grigri, trying to find a system for soloing that worked for me.
My first Salbit plan was extremely ambitious and was the result of spending weeks frustrated and indoors. I wanted to try linking the West, South, and East ridges together in a solo push. I laugh at myself now as it was the start of my climbing season, I was out of shape, and I'd never rope soloed a route before. Dreams are free...
After work, I packed my flatmates car and drove along the highway to the Goschnen valley. It was raining when I arrived, but I knew it would clear and shouldered my heavy pack towards the base of the South ridge of Salbit, where I planned to camp.
I woke up at 3 am, packed up my tent, and hiked to the base of the West Ridge, the first of three I had planned. When I arrived, it was obvious the first pitches were still wet from the night before.
I decided to have a go, and if there were any doubts at the top of the first pitch, I would bail. I had trouble with my system and broke my Gri-Gri's attachment to my chest harness, meaning it was no longer self-feeding and made the system much slower. Upon reaching the anchor, I knew it was going to be too much and rigged for an abseil, making my way back to the South ridge without a second thought.
Once I got to the South ridge, the sun was up and reviving my numb fingers. I had let go of my nervousness and shamelessly enjoyed the outlook of a much less committing project. I kept the rope in my pack and happily soloed the first five pitches (4-5b) to the first tower.
The next section looked tricky, so I got the rope out and took my time to get an efficient system going. Over the next four pitches, I found my sequence; flaking the rope into my small pack, tying in and climbing the pitch, rigging the system to abseil, cleaning most of the route on the way down, and then finally climbing back up, untying and repeating step one. It was exhausting but I enjoyed the faff.
After these pitches, I came to the crux. I tried to climb it clean, but I was still too nervous about falling and hesitated. I downclimbed, took a rest on a bolt, and then went back up, finding the moves much easier. The rest of the route went well, and I worked pretty hard to get everything done safely and efficiently. I would have had a hard time getting all three ridges climbed at this pace!
After having lunch on the summit pinnacle, I chatted with some other climbers and made my way down with them, splitting off at the crossroads to get my tent. I still had a lot of food and no plan for the following day, so I decided to get my tent and find a nice camping spot to go over the day and its learnings, sipping tea and admiring the impressive rock towers that surrounded me.
Although I didn't go as extreme as I dreamt I would, I was happy with my decision and the day as a whole. The South Ridge as a first rope solo was still a great adventure, and it was a day full of learning.
Some points I learnt about rope soloing:
rope soloing is hard, physical, and slow
about 45 mins for pitch with average difficulty
carrying a heavy rope makes it awkward to free solo in between the harder sections
mallions are slow
back up knots getting stuck in cracks
remember to take breaks, keep hydrated etc. Easier said than done as once you stop there is virtually no progress
small things equate to big time. Things like stacking rope, racking up, changing systems etc need to be slick so you don't need to rush
don't push free soloing in order to save time.
having dedicated carabiners for all systems would be better: 1x tri lock for grigri (not mallion), 2x HMS for anchor, 1 locker for microtrax, 1x atc, 1x safety, 2 spare