Post by Ben Tibbetts

Frankie Huster on the SW spur of Castor, Italy (D+, V, 1100m) .
It’s hotter than hell and getting pretty dry and boney here in the Alps. I’ve been waiting for the right temperatures to do this route as the last few weeks the glaciers haven’t been refreezing very well overnight and the access is down a steep, crevassed glacier. Finally we found a cooler window a few days ago to go climb this route and gather the information needed for the guidebook. Now i’m back at the computer and working night and day on 4000m Peaks of the Alps – Volume 2: Central. . “The south-west spur is the blunt crest formed between the west and south faces of Pt 3992 on Castor’s south-west ridge. This magnificent buttress is composed of strongly banded Monte Rosa orthogneiss, weathered and sculpted by millennia of ice and wind: alternating biotite-rich and quartz-feldspar-rich layers have produced the conspicuous rusty-orange, grey and white banding visible from a distance. There are a handful of routes on either side of the crest, but the 500m Via Classica is the finest, an intricate line sticking close to the central prow and climbing a succession of beautiful features. This buttress has been rather neglected in recent decades, but it is one of the finest rock routes on a 4000m peak, offering a superb and varied outing with an easy descent by the normal route.” . The route turned out to have pretty complex route-finding and I was grateful for local beta from Emrik Favre, as the CAS topo was pretty vague. I’ve gone a bit overboard making a detailed topo as it is unusually easy to get lost on this route…! Still tons of work left to go on the guidebook - assimilating my notes and editing the texts… I thought I’d be done by now !! . Be safe out there, folks!