Received this from our man from Austria, Emi Moosburger, on a trip to Switzerland's Ticino:

Korni and Katha and I spent the last days down in Ticino, on the quest for dry boulders. After realizing that there is still plenty of snow around we first focused on climbing in Cresciano. Our first day there, a Sunday, was sunny, dry and with perfect temps. Psyche was high! We bouldered in Osogna on classic old lines like "Revê de Mario", the first 8A (v11)  in Ticino established by Fred Nicole back in the day (mid-1990s?) or the perfect slab "Mary Poppins"... It felt so good to touch the good old Swiss granite after a long period of snow, rain, and hard days preparing in the gym..

The next two days were rainy and we ended up sitting and driving around, basically getting really bored and hoping for the weather to clear up. Wednesday was sunny finally and we were back at Cresciano. We mainly tried "Mithril", a short and steep 8B established by Dave Graham.  All the moves went down for both of us at the end of the day, so motivation was high to come back and try the whole thing. Two days later we returned and started trying it from the start. I stuck the first move, did the second, the third,... and suddenly found myself on the tricky mantle! Kinda shaky and surprised what's going on I didn’t get a foothold the right way and, when I tried to stand up quickly, all of a sudden my foot slipped and I dived down face-first into the pads! Holy crap! I just fckd it up at the mantle..! Luckily I wasn't hurt except some scratches and my heartbeat slowed down again... Whilst I took a long rest Korni managed to fight his way out the roof too and was at the mantle... Both of us knowing you easily can blow it up there we were kinda stressed, him climbing, me spotting. He kept it together though, stood on the slab, shaking like he had just downed 20 espresso shots in a row: Greeeat success!! I put my boots back on again, ready to find out if I could climb the thing again and get another chance for the mantle... After struggling on the first move twice I stuck it and climbed up to the mantel again! This time I was better prepared, did everything exactly according to Beta-Plan and topped out! Yessss :)

The following days we spent climbing in Chironico, on and off, with the rain between sunny days... I managed to climb a really amazing problem called "Conquistador", 8A+, compression climbing on a beautiful bloc lying in the riverbed at "Schattental". Although the weather was pretty bad most of the time we had some nice days as well and can't wait to return soon!

Check out the Switzerland section in the Photo Gallery for a great shot of Emi on Mithril.