Beautiful first hike on my Swiss vacation this year. As they continued on the trail further up the valley, I left the path and trudged up the steep grassy hillside on the left to gain the broad valley between the eastern ridges of the Sattelhorn and Bocktenhorn. No trails were evident here, but travel was easy on grass and talus fields. A scree chute coming off the Sattelhorn offered an easy way up to the main ridge and a short hike took me to the summit cairn of this minor peak.
There was some fun, hands-on scrambling on the north side of the Bocktenhorn, mostly easy to moderate, including one short difficult step with a bit of exposure. The register on this m summit is a beautiful diary-style book, but only a dozen or so entries were found since its inception in i.
At the bottom of the scree I veered right west above some minor cliffs to link up with the south ridge, which easily led to a rocky col and up a minor peak officially called the Leidhorn m.
Most people who come up here probably visit as part of a ridge traverse as I did. Half way south, the ridge widens into a flat plateau with small Alpine tarns, bits of remnant glacier ice, and a small glacial stream. It is here that I stumbled upon an elongated, shiny object hidden in between the drab chunks of rock: not knowing what to expect, I pulled it out from the rubble⦠I was holding a large, rusty bullet in my hands!
It was about 30 cm long, closed on all sides, the tip still on, and quite heavy⦠perhaps still a live shell? I slowly and gingerly placed it back on the ground. You just never know, people have found unexploded ordnance in the mountains before!
