Hoh Brisen with the boys

Near the end of viable hiking season 2025 I put out the call to get in one last route. Once you hit October, most of the gondolas and high elevation trails in Switzerland are open only if the weather stays clear. There was a route we had wanted to do earlier in the year but had never gotten around to doing, and was likely still good because it hadn't snowed yet. I got some gays together, verified the transit we'd be taking was still running, and checked the webcams. Everything looked good for the next day and we went to bed.

And it fucking snowed.

The route we were going to do ranged from about 1700m - 2500m elevation and the nearest webcams I could find to the location at 1900m had snow. That meant that basically the entire route would be in the snow. The group for that day had a, uh, mix of alpine experience shall we say, and as the organizer I wanted everyone to be safe. I suggested some alternatives, but the gays demanded snow. So we all got on the train from Zurich and headed out towards Nidwalden.

We made it to the trailhead and started climbing. I had decided to keep it simple and only brought two cameras: the Contax T3 and the Lomo LC-A 120 (Kodak gold in both). I had intended to only bring the contax, but had found the LC-A 120 in my basement the day before and wanted to try it out again.

We said hi to the locals, then went up to the hut at Halidigrat and had some heisse schoggi to warm up

This route has basically all of the elevation gain at the beginning, so I didn't take too many pictures until we were near the top.

We then started the descent down the other side, which was the part I was most nervous about. It was pretty steep and on the shady side of the mountain, so there was a good chance it would be icy. It was late enough though that the snow had softened up, but people without exospikes were still sliding around.

We successfully made it below the snow line without anyone getting too injured.

And then headed to Luzern for some well-earned Kebab.

Solid day!