At seven o'clock in the morning we started in the Chamanna Coaz on the "Il Chapütschin", which is usually seen from the valley with a white tip and thus has the nice name "snow cap". We follow the path (Route No.104) to the stone moraine and climb it up to the Moränenende, where we come into rocky terrain. We follow the cairn on the way, because there are no signs or colored markings. We walk over rubble and long rock ledges, up to the entrance to the first glacier, the Vadret del Chapütschin.

Glacier crossing and climbing inlays

Here we get ready for the crossing, put on the crampons, pick up the pimple and tie ourselves in the rope. We only need half an hour to cross the glacier. We decide not to climb the northern ridge at its deepest point, approximately in its middle, but to scramble up the less steep ledges at the northern end. Unfortunately, there is a lot of down-stratified, loose rock on the ridge, so that it makes the actually "little difficult" access difficult (games in the rock with difficulty I-II) and gives us some heart palpitations. When we made half of the ridge, we decided to go up to the summit via the western glacier Vadrettin del Chapu-chin instead of tormenting our way across the entire ridge. 

The summit of Il Chapütschin

The summit ascend through steep terrain, with large boulders and deeper snow. We take the rope shorter and always lay it around the stones, so that the rope gets caught in a fall there. Here, extreme caution is required, the rope should always be well stretched on delicate areas and you should always pay close attention to the one behind a climber, because you can easily hurt yourself with the crampons. At the summit a huge stone man awaits us and we ask ourselves, how many summiteers have already stacked on it ...

We can overlook the entire glacial world of the Sella group and the Vadret da Roseg and enjoy the view over the Bernina group. Even our descent from the Summit attempt of La Muongia the day before we discover. On a clear day we can even see the snow-capped peaks of the Mont Blanc massif recognize in the distance.

Descent and abseiling

We shorten our descent on the north ridge by not descending it completely again, but rappelling in the middle of it. For this we discover a hook in the rock and descend quickly. The bergschrund should not be underestimated here, because there are very wide and sometimes not immediately visible cracks on the border between rock and ice. You should always rappel on a solid base on the rock and then only "secured" to enter the glacier. 

Conclusion

The ascent of Il Chapütschin is a beautiful half-day tour, which offers a beautiful panoramic view of the Bernina mountain range, to Italy and down to the lakes near St. Moritz. 

You should definitely be equipped with pimples, crampons, helmet, rope and belay devices. Knowledge of rope handling and securing on the glacier and on the rock is required!