Piz Buin, Silvretta: Tito Arosio and Rosa Morotti add new route to East Face

On Sunday, 31 March 2019 Rosa Morotti and I had the pleasure of establishing a new route up the East Face of Piz Buin, a famous mountain in the Silvretta massif straddling the border between Switzerland and Austria. The Silvretta group is extremely famous for the Haute Route ski mountaineering itinerary that runs through it but, bar its normal routes, is less commonly associated with actual mountaineering.

At present we have no information regarding previous mixed climbs on the east face of Piz Buin, and we've had this confirmed by the Tuoi hut warden and various alpinists from Graubünden.

The rock is good quality and compact and is suitable for summer climbs, too; the hut warden told us he had ventured up the east face twice in summer, encountering good rock on each occasion. Our climb is likely to share one or two pitches with one of his routes.

Our East Face mixed outing is super logical, so much so that when I first saw it four years ago, I immediately asked myself if it had already been climbed. Thomas Wälti, a talented mountain guide who knows the Graubünden mountains like the back of his hand, immediately replied he believed it had never been done in winter before.

The climb is split into 3 sections: the couloir to reach the snowfield in the middle of the face, 4 pitches of snow and ice up to 90°, a 30-40° snowfield, and the last section of mixed climbing (5 pitches) which presents classic mixed climbing (M4) up very compact rock of mediocre quality.

We climbed up to SE pre-summit, and were separated from the summit by a 500m flat ridge. We abseiled down the route, equipping the belays and down climbing the snowy sections.

by Tito Arosio

Tito thanks: Grivel, Marmot, Kayland, Cousin-Trestec

TOPO: East Face - Piz Buin, Silvretta