Europe ere climbing meet up 2025

[Stahlmann]

Any updates on it?
Number of participants?

[Jean]

Confirmed presence:
Quadalupe
NewBlood
Bos
Jean
1 partner


Up for it or definitely in(terested):

guitarplayer
2Birds1Stone
2 partner

Interested:

commandante
ErnestScribbl3r
muu
mir
mathiverse


Seriously tempted:

AxelHeyst

Asked for update:
Stahlmann

12 forum members manifested interest, some of them meaning two persons.
I'll give a definite date before the end of the month.

[NewBlood]

hey Jean, you can bump me up to the "definitely up for it" category.
Really looking forward to it!

[comandante]

I'm definitely up for it for the weekend of 19th. Interested for weekend of 26th.

[Jean]

It seems a majority of answer are for the week end of the 26th and 27th. So it will be centered on this week end.
I'll try to be available for the week end before too and the week in beetween too.

I don't think it is nescessary to limit the attendance, we'll adapt the plan to the number of person that come.
Worst case if we are too much is we all camp at my forest and walk to crags from there.

here are the cotations for the closest crag to my forest.



https://www.camptocamp.org/waypoints/11 ... de-mijoux-

If it looks too easy, and we are too many to wild camp on land that I don't own, more difficult climb will require a few hours of walking or a 1h walk to the bus stop and a bus ride.

I'll still appreciate a rsvp as early as you can, a few day earlier than your arrival is early enough for me not to get too stressed by the unknown (but the stress would be smaller than the joy of you attending of course), before the 18th of july would be nice, and before july would be great. I hope it helps you ponder your fear of commitment with your concerns about my comfort.

Climbing will mostly be the excuse to meet. If the weather is not suited for climbing, we'll find something else to do. If we want to do something else, we'll do it.

[NewBlood]

Hey Jean, the crag looks awesome. I'm RSVP-ing. A bit too early to book train tickets from here, but I'm thinking arriving on the 24 or 25 if that's ok and leaving on the 28th? Depending on what others are doing.

[Quadalupe]

I'm also down and would also like to come a bit earlier (say Wednesday 23th). Looking at the flixbus schedule the best bus back for me would be 23:20 on Sunday 28th. I would arrive/leave from Bern.

Getting excited for this!

[Jean]

@Quadalupe
Bern is the closest flixbus. From there you can walk (1 or 2 days), hitchhike, take transit (expensive without halffare card), or even swim to my place.
It no problem for me if you arrive wednesday. When more people will have announced there eta, I'll start planning the week.

[Jean]

I checked the flix bus destination, here they are in order of practicality, with travel time using public transit. Those three are an easy day of biking (i don't know if you can take a bike in flixbus) away from my home or my forest, with Bern being significantly closer
Bern (30 minute train to where i live, 75 to my forest)
Yverdon les bains (60 to where i live, 75 to my forest)
Olten (60 minutes to where i live, 90 to my forest)
Basel is not too far, but a bit further. By bike there is a pass to pass

Trains can be quite cheap coming trough or from germany.
The closest train station to my place to which deutsche bahn will sell you a ticket is called "Biel/Bienne" last year i paid less than fourty euro to go all the way to Lübeck. This might be cheaper and faster than flixbus.
From Biel/Bienne train station, my place is a 60 minute walk (or 5 minutes train ride) and my forest about 4 hour walk. (Or 40 minutes transit an 1 hour walk).

Edit:
I missed that there are flixbus to solothurn too.
It is nearly as close as bern to where i live an as close to my forest.

Also, i already said it, but i'll rewrite it. An interrail global pass will cover your travel out and back in your home country, to switzerland, and most train inside of switzerland.
Train in switzerland can get you to a lot of places. It's probably more convenient and cheaper than a car for most peoples need. Let alone a rental car.
If you plan to come for a bit longer and visit switzerland or other places in europe, i'll happily be your travel consultant

[bos]

DW and I will be there from 25 to 27 July. Probably longer since we want to explore the area further. If it's oke, then we might invite a friend that regularly climbs and camps with us. Looking forward to it!

[Jean]

@bos
Great! Looking forward to see you and your DW again.
I'll let you judge if your friend will be a good fit for our crowd. To me it's ok if he joins us.

[mir]

My dates will depend on the plane tickets, I will write again soon.

[Jean]

@mir
All tree swiss airport are fine.
GVA BSL ZRH

Zrh have a train station with direct trains to biel/bienne.
From gva, i think there 1 change now in renens or lausanne.
From bsl, there are buses every 15 minutes to basel main station, from where it's a direct or 1 change in olten. Train ticket from basel is valid on both route. Train changes are a non issue in switzerland. You're unlickely to miss it, and if you miss it, next train isn't far behind.

You can save quite some money by buying a non refundable sparbillet on sbb.ch. If you do that, take a lot of margin, to account for a possible plane delay. I would suggest to plan a visit in the city, and just forego the visit in case the plane is delayed
Also, basel being closer, train are also intrinsecly cheaper.
I find basel to be the nicest of the three cities. The old town is nice, you can swim in the rhine. Also, you have to take a bus to basel anyway. So unless planes are much cheaper or much more practical, try to fly to basel if you want to fly.
If you want to buy a sparbillet, you have to do so a few weeks in advance.
I would wait until we have week plan to buy a sparbillet, because it would save you money all the way to whereever we'll be when you arrive.

[mir]

Thanks for the info, I was looking at Bern as the flights seem cheaper.

[Jean]

I'm surprised to learn that there are flights to bern again, but if there are, the s bahn there goes directly to my place.

[2Birds1Stone]

DW and I are flying into Portugal on April 22nd or 23rd, so unless we leave the EU after we finish our house/pet sit at the end of May, we have to leave Schengen by July 21st....but then we would also likely need to find a good exit out of Schengen (to wherever it is we end up planning after) from your area. Not sure how feasible it will all be, but definitely still very interested for a multitude of reasons.

[Jean]

That's a close miss. From what I read about shengen rule, all you have to do to be able to be at the core of the meeting on th 26-27th of july, is to spend a week out of shengen beetween may and july.
The UK is probably the easiest to reach non shengen country. There are plenty of low cost flights beetween the UK and Switzerland. The UK is easy to reach without flying too. You could also take the boat to the feroese.
If you like hot weather, you also have option in cyprus, north africa and midle east, and western balkan. Most of them also have cheap flights to switzerland. Moroco is easy to reach by boat, west balkans are easy to reach by bus or train.

leaving shengen from switzerland is very easy, even if you don't wan't to fly (with planes its trivial). It literraly just took me less than 48 hours to hitchhike to Genova where passenger boats go to north africa. There are also cheap direct buses from Bern to Genova.

edit:
I forgot to mention it again, but an interrail would allow you to travel cheaply across europe, which also includes some non shengen countries (mostly UK, west balkans, and turkey)

[Quadalupe]

I'll have to drop out due to other obligations unfortunately. Wishing you lots of fun!

[mir]

I’m looking for cheaper flights and wanted to check the earliest and latest acceptable arrival and departure dates so I could book the flight now. There’s a good flight on the 26th, but then I'll be too late for the meeting. Also, Bern is no longer an option.

[Jean]

With the assumption that everyone is able to find a place when given coordinates, and to sleep in a tent in a forest, you can arrive as early as you want, you might just have to do things alone
I will try to be free from the 19th to the 28th, so this are the time perisod were you can arrive and expect some support from me.
If you want to meet the other, arriving on saturday the 26th is probably a bit late, as what will happen is that you'll spend the rest of the day joining us with local transport and bus. It's probably fun and interesting to go to the climbing spot together, but you are more than welcome to arrive saturday. and join us wherever we will be, and spend the saturday afternoon/evening and the sunday with us. So I would suggest to arrive a bit earlier if you can.
It also depends on how early you can be at the biel/bienne train station, if that's not too late, we might be able to grab you on the way.

I'll make a plan when everyone will have their ETA, but my idea is to be camping on friday and saturday evening

Or by how early, how late, you meant the time of the day? I personally don't care, but you need to check trains from airport. (they are all well connected). last connection to most of the small village where we could walk from is 19:50
Are you only able to arrive on the week end?