Traverse of Balfrin and an extra face

Great weekend! Always a cool ambiance in that area with the faces of 4000ers and the impressive Riedgletscher. The descent from the Balfrin is really worth it, much better than to go back to Gasenried (also the bus connection is better). I was surprised to see the ice faces that blank but the snowfall of last week was also rather like in January than May. Unfortunately the 20cm of fresh snow also didn't improve the overall low coverage in the area but as most of our descent was on glaciers, we actually had amazing descents. The winter room is quite nice even without heating, it also fits the full capacity (9) well.

Overall impression: The area is not well covered for the time of the year. The ca. 20cm (10-40) of snow of last week gave the glaciers a nice fresh cover but didn't help to improve the rocky-terrain, which resembles a mine field. The glaciers itself also don't seem well covered and especially the higher-up ice faces are all unfeasible. It seemed like it snowed too cold/too windy again. Even the normal route to the Ulrichshorn is very icy. Details: Sat: Continuous snow from 2100m, so ca. 500m+ to carry, pretty acceptable. The crevasse zone at ca. 3300m looks worse this year but was traceable. Great skiing on the small N-Face (starting at 3400m, well visible from the hut), just the visibility was a bit lacking. I've also touched the glacier ice in one turn (see pic) so even there it wasn't well covered. Sun: The initial idea was to do first the Ulrichshorn and ski its face but we quickly abandoned it as even the normal route was pretty icy (not really worth it for us if not skiable). Instead, we directly went up the Balfrin for which we hesitated between the S-ridge and SW-flanc. We then boot-packed up the SW-flanc on annoying loose snow with the rocks below, at least it wasn't too long. Descent on the Balfrin glacier was amazing then, perfect powder with no trace. No issues there with crevasses. After the glacier was an annoying rocky section betw. 2800-2500m followed by a really good snow tongue all the way to Färich (2050m). Chill descent on feet to Hüttega.

Sat: nice temp for the ascend, predominantely cloud covered. Sun: freezy in the morning, nice with the sun later, no wind.