Quite possibly the best country in the world for a climber to visit. Take your pick: granite, limestone, or gneiss - all of it splitter, and most of it bolted. There are big walls, high peaks, and fun crags. The hut system is great, providing quick access to climbs and hearty fare at a reasonable price. The alpine approaches can include some impressive vertical. Be sure your legs are as fit as your fingers.
Beyond the climbing, Switzerland offers a unique opportunity to sample Italian, French, and German language, cuisine, and culture in its various regions. Well worth a visit!
There is so much rock in Switzerland. Too much for one website to describe comprehensively! The goal of these pages is to document many of the most worthwhile climbing areas (sport, trad; alpine and single pitch, and a bit of bouldering) and with useful details for some of the best routes. Hopefully this will be useful for visitors in getting oriented.
That said, if you want to add routes for your ticklist, please go ahead!
A note on geographic organization:
Here the areas are listed alphabetically, but other information can be found about areas organized:
- by canton ( topodb.ch)
- by region and type of climbing
- by north, east, south, west (the Filidor guidebooks, and chmoser.ch/ )
More reference websites:
Swiss Alpine Club guidebooks - Climbing and alpinism guidebooks by the Swiss Alpine Club. Not all are in English but many are.
UKClimbing - look at logbook for crags (e.g., Salbit climbs )
Gipfelbuch - Great for conditions on alpine routes
Chmoser - Excellent personal logbook of a dedicated climber, with detailed descriptions of some routes (in German)
Scalamalade-areas - Overview of some areas, no detailed route information, but good for getting ideas of where to go
Topodb.ch - List of climbing routes by canton, region, area, sometimes with topos
hikr.org - Some alpine routes / many peaks detailed here, with condition reports
summitpost.org - Some mountains / crags detailed here
kletterportal.ch - for finding partners
camptocamp.org - Alpine focused site, good for finding climbing near a specific point
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swizzy, so much rock - and even more bolts...
go climbing in switzerland: besides the alpine routes you just finde bolted sport climbing. Ask people about nice crags to trad climb single pitches - they'll starr at you like your nuts.
we would have so much of nice solid rock for trad climbing (göschenen, grimsel, alto-ticino just to mention some areas) there is no big trad scene, just some freaks who do like theire E8 stuff at secret spots, the alpinists who do the multipitches - but the rest is sport climbers!
For me, a swiss guy want to climb moderate trad routes let's say one to three pitches, I have to finde them myself.
So thats what I do. Maybe I'll put up some info here sometime...
greez from swizzy Oct 17, 2008
North Kingstown, RI
I was only in Switzerland for two weeks and had no problem finding long moderate trad routes. What about the Engelhorner?
Brian
Nov 21, 2008
Haines, Alaska
Morrison, CO
The database is built by the users. The Eiger is not in the database, because none of our users have climbed it, (or if they have, they haven't bothered to submit it). Perhaps once you do it you can add it to the database! In the mean time, this mountainproject.com/v/inter… is about the the closest thing we've got. Hope its enough to get your palms sweaty. Jan 12, 2011
Haines, Alaska
Salt Lake City, UT
CA
youtube.com/watch?v=AN5CDew… Dec 2, 2012
Looking for a climbing partner for the summer! I'm located in Gryon in the south east part of Switzerland. I'd be psyched to make it over to Cham for some alpine objectives. Don't hesitate to hit me up. I've got rope, rack, and glacier gear. Let's get it. Jun 19, 2015
Sunny Slopes + Berkeley, CA
Cannes