These are the conditions under which it can be used: good that skitouring and hay weather don't coincide...

And this is the north face of Bristenstock: our route leads pretty much through the center of the face. We climbed on skis up to 2800m, which in the picture is about as high as there is more snow than rock. From there, we reached the NNE-ridge on the left and followed it all the way to the summit.

Chris climbing on skis in the middle part of the north face. It's between 40 and 45 degrees steep here, but very sustained. And it's well visible: the snow conditions are excellent - fantastic powder is waiting!

This picture was taken in the same position as the one before. It shows the way up the face. The ski depot at the beginning of the rocks is well visible in this perspective.

Bristenstock is impressively steep. This is the view down the NEAT construction site, more than 2000m straight below.

From the ski depot, you first have to reach the NNE-ridge. The terrain here is over 50 degrees steep, exposed and was a mixture of soft powder snow and  loose granite rocks - north face style, quite awkward. Crampons, ice axe and sure footing were absolutely required. That's me in the exit from the face to the ridge.

That's Reto and me on the pre-summit Rot Bristen, P.2948. (H)airy stuff!

But we made it to the summit! This is Reto a.k.a "The Rocket", just a few steps before arriving. The ridge was in very challenging conditions with again lots of deep powder snow. Moreover, it's long, sometimes very exposed and has a good load of loose rock, too. Don't underestimate the amount of time it takes to get from the ski depot to the summit.

That's me arriving on top of Bristen (3073m). It took us around 2 hours for the first 1000m of elevation gain, then another 2 hours for the 700 already much more difficult meters of elevation gain to the ski depot and finally almost 2 hours for the 300vm of climbing to the summit.

Stone cross on the summit, with the view to Kanton Uri and Vierwaldstättersee.

Even the downclimb to the ski depot took a full hour. But then we were ready to roll: these are the first few turns high up in the north face. Please notice that there is no cheating with the angle. It is that steep here.

Excellent powder made the ride a big, big pleasure! What a day, what an adventure :-)