Small kids and steep rock: an extreme family holiday in Switzerland

Anyone who has followed the career of British climber Leo Houlding will be used to seeing vertigo-inducing pictures of him hanging on to rock faces in the most extreme environments.

But the images from his latest trip are the most terrifying yet — shots captured not on an expedition to the frozen wastes of Antarctica or the jungles of the Amazon, but on his family’s summer holiday.

They show Houlding, his wife Jessica and their two children on a four-day climb of Piz Badile, a peak on the Swiss-Italian border whose smooth, sheer, granite flanks rise to 3,308m. “It looks a lot like the Shard in London — but three times as high,” says Houlding.

In one picture his daughter Freya, 7, pulls herself up on a rocky ledge, her pink helmet standing out against the grey-white glacier hundreds of metres beneath her feet. For much of the climb her brother Jackson was carried in a harness on his mother’s back, but in a few shots he is striking out on his own, up the north ridge, smiling at the camera as the clouds swirl far below. He is three.  

“We weren’t doing it to make a point but I do think families are capable of much more than people expect,” says Houlding. “Modern western society has encouraged a sort of extreme risk aversion to the point where it can be quite inhibiting. It’s made people think that life is out to get you, but it’s not, you’ve got to go out to get life.”

Despite the dizzying photos, the knife-edge north ridge was chosen for safety — staying on the ridge removes the risk of rocks falling from above. Whereas most climbers take two days on the route, the family paced it over four, with a night in a refuge at the foot of the climb, one in a tent on the ridge, then another in a small metal bivouac shelter on the summit. They climbed using ropes and Micro Traxion devices, like small pulleys that will slide up the rope but not down, to ensure safety.

Even so, the six-hour hike to get to the refuge on the first day would be enough to deter most families with young children.

The Houldings’ encouragement strategies included “endless” games of 20 questions, occasional audio books played from a phone attached to a parent’s rucksack and “a big sack of Haribo to bribe the kids if they started playing up”.

I think with most kids the more difficult the terrain is, the more they enjoy it . . . using your hands, it’s more exciting and engaging

“I think with most kids the more difficult the terrain is, the more they enjoy it,” says Houlding. “No children like walking uphill really but the minute you get onto terrain where you have to start using your hands, it’s more exciting and engaging. In every playground there’s a climbing frame, and every kid likes climbing trees — so it’s a very natural, playful activity.”

Accurate Swiss weather forecasting, and consistent 4G coverage on the route, meant there was little risk of being caught in a storm, and the family safely made it to the summit before nightfall on the third day, July 27.

“By total coincidence the next day was my 40th birthday and I woke up on the summit to an amazing alpine sunrise, with just the four of us up there in this incredible mountain environment,” says Houlding. Rather than retrace their steps, the family continued into Italy, abseiling down the south side of the mountain, then walking out to the nearest road in the Val Masino.

Adventure done, they continued south to visit Rome (“Freya really wanted to see the Colosseum”) then spent a week on the beach in Croatia. Next year, the plan is to travel to Wyoming, rent two llamas to carry their supplies, then head deep into the Wind River Range on a two-week wilderness camping and climbing trip.

“People say ‘but we struggle even to get the kids ready to go to the shops!’ ” says Houlding. “But so do we — everything’s a challenge with kids. What we’ve found is that major challenges are no harder than minor ones. You’ve still got to get them dressed and get their teeth brushed and go through that whole rigmarole. But then, instead of going to the park for an hour, you go and climb a massive mountain.”

Leo Houlding’s session at this month’s FT Weekend Festival, on climbing Mount Roraima in Guyana, is still available at ftweekendfestival.com

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