From Simplonpass to Binn: via Bivacco Farello and Punta Mottiscia/Hillehorn E Couloir (not finished)

The overall goal was to find a way to ski the Hillehorn E-couloir as a traverse with public transport and I think we found a cool way to do it. D1 already included some great skiing from the Chaltwasserpass. The bivacco Farello is a real treat, amazing view to Alpe Veglia and Monte Leone. D2 then started a bit tricky with ascending the Ritterpass but worked quite well. Unfortunately, we didn´t manage to ski the full E-couloir but we will come back when there´s more snow and the key passage is more trivial (and skiable).

Overall a really cool adventure as some sections were quite lacking some information, especially the Ritterpass on both sides. The Hillehorn really seems to be a tricky summit, with both sides getting more difficult to ascend due to glacier retreat it seems?

Overall snow quantity pretty low for the season, quality good (firn to skiable slush). Details: Simplonpass - Chaltwasserpass: Easy on hard snow with good grip just the long traverse was a bit annoying. Chaltwasserpass - Alpe Veglia: The couloir of the former Aurona glacier is quite obvious to find and also less steep than in the CAS description, about 35-40°. Was really fun to ski on good firn. Further down more slushy and we were nearly able to ski completely down but the snow is melting fast. Alpe Veglia - Bivacco Farello: Warm ascend in the afternoon but was fine. Just the bottom part was quite annoying with taking the skis off a few times. Bivacco Farello - Ritterpass: Very low amount of snow. First, we boot-packed the bottom part on a snowfield close to the summer trail before joining the mostly dry summer trail for the top part (with the traverse on the rock/grass band). There were still a few steep/exposed sections with snow on the trail so it was good to keep crampons/axe ready. Ritterpass - base of E-Couloir: The NW/N-flanc is unproblematic to descend. Snow was still hard but quite enjoyable. E-Couloir: Straightforward up to 2900m, then we got a bit lost. I saw an old descent trace coming from the left (looking uphill), which I followed, but it was just getting steeper and more exposed. It also seemed the people were just turning around there. So I went back and looked at the straight continuation but which didn´t look pleasant. A 2m ice gully, ca. 1.5m wide and ca. 50° steep would have to be overclimbed and the snow above didn´t looked great either...so we decided to turn around as it didn´t seem worth it. Overall, I think there´s just a lot of snow missing this year and the glacier retreated even further in comparison with older reports and the CAS description. Nevertheless, the descend was very pleasant, great firn! Descent ot Heiligkreuz and Binn: We followed the version indicated on swisstopo though I saw also some old traces more direct N. We were able to get down to 1600m on skis, nearly to Heiligkreuz. From there 3km of walking to the bus in Binn.

D1: 9h - 16h D2: 5h20 - 12h40

Hot and clear. Only in the morning of D2 it felt quite cold with some wind around the hut.