Just a couple of snaps of some local cows! The local farms, tourist office and a couple of national agencies concerned with farming and accident prevention put on an information day for local businesses in Leysin yesterday. It was quite an interesting event and they’ve a range of leaflets and advisories available we can give to guests with advice about how to deal a field of cows if they meet them on a hike or bike ride.

There’s a couple of documents we were given on the day, I’ve attached a PDF of them here :

safety with cows, 1
safety with cows, 2

Tags: Leysin

Gastlosen is one of the biggest sports climbing crags around here, in fact one of the bigger ones in Switzerland really. This is a poor photograph really, I ought to have taken one from the parking or a bit further away. We just climbed in the first sector nearest the parking known as Gravière for all the scree underneath.

I’ve got some older photographs and you can start to see what an amazing area this is for climbing, it’s a long ridge with climbing either side. We were on the eastern side of the north-south running ridge but there’s climbing on the western side as well.

These two (above) photographs are taken from the western side near Chalet du Soldat which is a good base to climb on that end of the ridge.

Some more wintery shots from the eastern side taken in October 08 and March 09

Tags: Gastlosen | rock climbing

Learning from the day before that it’s turning cold we picked a location right down on the valley floor today and it was excellent. I’ve not climbed at Yvorne before but I think I’ll be going back. It’s set up above the local vineyards about 20 minutes walk from the roadhead. It’s a great crag with 3 or 4 distinct sub-areas and it’s a real sun trap. I think in the height of summer it would be too warm but in this newly arrived autumn weather it’s just perfect getting the full benefit from the sun.

Tags: Climbing | Yvorne