Wellhorn

In Memory of Stefan "kletterwebbi" Weber

A note from the SP staff Stefan Weber, the member we all used to know from his climbing pseudonym kletterwebbi, died on May 28th 2004 in southern France at the age of 37. Stefan joined SP early on in 2002 and contributed a number of excellent pages and routes to this site. He was an accomplished climber excelling in difficult alpine and technical routes. The Dolomites, especially the area around Gröden / Val Gardena were special to him, as it was his old ancestral home. kletterwebbi was always willing to share his knowledge and experience with other climbers, mainly here on SP, but also on other sites. He contributed his IT expertise as webmaster of his local section of the German Alpine Club, where he also engaged in leading trips for fellow members. Besides his climbing and mountaineering activities he was a musician, a composer of contemporary music. Stefan will be greatly missed by us all. This page will be kept in honor of kletterwebbi, one of SP's most talented, knowledgeable members, and without a doubt, one of our greatest fellow mountaineers. The picture was taken on the summit ridge of Lyskamm.

Overview

The Wellhorn is situated at the NE part of the central berner alps, NE of Grindelwald, it is part of the Wetterhorn/-group, the highest mountain of this group is (surprise !) the Wetterhorn (3701 m). There are three different Wellhorn summits: Kleines Wellhorn N-summit (2685m), Kleines Wellhorn S-summit (2701 m) and main summit of the Wellhorn (3191 m). SE of the summits the Rosenlaui-valley is located. The upper part of this valley is covered by the Rosenlauigletscher. West of the summits the Scheideggwetterhorn with it's tremendous N-face (1300 m height) is rising above the Grosse Scheidegg. North of the summit the beautiful and famous area of the Grosse Scheidegg is a havy visited place. East of the Rosenlaui-valley and the Rosenlauigletscher the Engelhörner-group offers a wide range of climbing and hiking. Other mountains of the Wetterhorn group beside the Wetterhorn and the Wellhorn are the Rosenhorn (3689 m), the Mittelhorn (3704 m), the Bärglistock (3655 m) or the Dossen (3138 m). All summits of the Wellhorn are climbed very seldom, but the Kleines Wellhorn is very famous and often visited for the routes of it's SE-face (600m height). This climbs are under the best long, alpine limestone climbs of the whole alps. Only one of them (the famous "Gletschersinfonie") leads up to the S-summit of the Kleines Wellhorn, the other routes are not reaching the summit. But the routes are so beautiful, so great, so exciting that no climber who has ever climbed one of those routes take care about don't reaching the summit. It's better to avoid the weekends if one want's to climb one of those routes because of possible crowds (at those routes 3 or 4 parties will be crowds !).

Getting There

In general one have to travel to the central part fo the Berner Alpen. There are three main base areas for the Wellhorn-ridge. Best choice is Meiringen. Meiringen: Meiringen is located at the northern part of the Berner Alpen. The easiest way to travel to Meiringen is from Zürich to Luzern (Autobahn N14). From Luzern take the Autobahn N8 to Sarnen and then travel via the Brünigpass to Meiringen. From Bern one is using the Autobahn N6 and N8 via Thun and Interlaken. Other possibilities coming from the south are the Grimselpass or the Sustenpass. Rosenlaui: Rosenlaui is the trailhead for climbing one of the routes at the Kleines Wellhorn SE-face and also for the path to the Dossenhütte (see below). It is situated at the lower part of the Rosenlaui-valley, which is located SW above Meiringen (bus from Meiringen). An other easy way to reach Rosenlaui is to start at Grindelwald, go to the Grosse Scheidegg (bus from Grindelwald) and reach Rosenlaui (mountain bike possible, I'm not shure if there is a possibilitie to reach Rosenlaui from the Grosse Scheidegg by bus). Grindelwald: Grindelwald can be reached by car from Bern, Zürich or Luzern via Interlaken. From Interlaken follow the well signed road to Grindelwald.

Red Tape

Camping at Rosenlaui is forbidden. There is no possibilitie to drive from Grindelwald to Rosenlaui via Grosse Scheidegg by car (just take the mountainabike ... ;-).

When To Climb

Summer

Camping

For the routes at the Kleines Wellhorn SE-face the situation is somewhat delicate. Camping at Rosenlaui is forbidden. There is a hotel at Rosenlaui, but this is one of the expensive kind of hotels. So many parties take a bivy below the start of the climbs. Good bivys are nearby the path to the bottom of the climb at a beautiful meadow. Don't go to high, close to the Rosenlauigletscher sometime a very cold wind forces some suffering. An other possibilie is to start at one of the campgrounds near Meiringen (see below), but in this case one have to start very early at the campground ! For the classical alpine routes, the Dossenhütte (2663 m) is the prefered place to stay for the night. The Dossenhütte is reached from Rosenlaui (1328 m) on a well marked path (5 hours). The path starts behind the big hotel and goes up the beautiful Rosenlaui-canyon. After about one hour a path to the Engelhornhütte bends left, do not follow this path. Following the marked path to the Dossenhütte (some fixed ropes and other artifical stuff but no difficulties) up to the Dossenwand (3 hours from Rosenlaui). Following the zig-zag's of the path leads one finally to the Dossenhütte. There are different campgrounds at the whole area, possible near-by places are Meiringen ore Inertkirchen (at the road Meiringen -> Grimselpass).There are a lot of campgrounds at the Brienzer See or at the Thuner See. Also in Grindelwald and at the Lütschental are some of them.

Mountain Conditions

For the weather forecast take a look at the Meteo Schweiz pages.

Routes

At first an overview to the routes at the SE-face of the Kleines Wellhorn. All of those are bolted, superb, modern climbs, all of them beside the classical SE-face route are first climbed by Kaspar Ochsner with different partners. The most famous routes are "Adlerauge" and "Gletschersinfonie" : Adlerauge, 7-10 hours, UIAA 7, 20 pitches, "Adlerauge" means "Eye of the eagle". Gletschersinfonie, 8-10 hours, UIAA 7+, 24 pitches, a lot harder than "Adlerauge", rebolted in 2002. "Gletschersinfonie" means "Symphony of glaciers". Aura, 10 - 12 hours, UIAA 8, 24 pitches Chaos Paradies, 9-11 hours, UIAA 8-, 21 pitches Kumulus, 8 hours, UIAA 6, only a few bolts, uncommon, bring a full rack SE-face (clasical route), 7 hours, SS- / UIAA IV, first climbed by Dölf Reist and Ernst Reiss at 15. July 1950. Miracolo, 10 hours, UIAA 8- (?), first done by Kaspar Ochsner Remember that the way down is to abseil down the routes, this may need some extra hours. Beside the famous climbs of the SE-face of the Kleines Wellhorn there are a couple of classic alpine routes. None of them is done often. Kleines Wellhorn N-flank and NE-ridge, 5 hours from Rosenlaui, WS+, 1300 Hm NE-butress, ZS, 6 hours from Rosenlaui, 1300 Hm, very troublesome Wellhorn Regular route (E-ridge), WS+, 5 hours from the Dossenhütte, the one and only route done from time to time. There are some variants. SE-flank, ZS, 5 hours from the Dossenhütte S-ridge, 6 hours from the "unterer Wellhornsattel", about 10 hours from the Dossenhütte, very seldom done, the rock quality is not very good. There are other routes using the NW-face or the NE-flank of the Wellhorn. But those are very dangerous and not recommended.

Guidebook and map

Clubführer Berner Alpen Band 5, ISBN 3 85902 155-9 The routes "Miracolo", "Aurora" and "Chaos Paradies" are not published in any guidebook yet but in the german climbers magazine "Klettern" (03/2003). LK der Schweiz Blatt 1229 (Grindelwald) LK der Schweiz Blatt 1230 (Guttannen)

First Ascents

The main summit of the Wellhorn was first climbed by Edmund Graf von Fellberg with his swiss guides Chr.Michel and Peter Egger at the 31. July 1866. The Kleines Wellhorn was first climbed by C.E.Freemann und H.C.Bowen together with the swiss guides Heinrich and Simon Zurflüh at the 7. August 1893.

External Links

• Grindelwald
  Homepage of the town Grindelwald
• Meiringen
  Homepage of the town Meiringen
• Hotel Rosenlaui
  Homepage of the Hotel Rosenlaui
• Trip report of the route "Adlerauge" (sorry, German language only)
  
• Klettern
  Routedescriptions of the "AURA" and "Chaos Paradies" (in german)
• Verticalsoprt - Climbing Shop of Kaspar Ochsner
  Climbing shop of Kaspar Ochsner who has first climbed most of the modern Wellhorn routes. At the page there are some topos/route descriptions of many of the Ochsner routes.

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Images

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