there".
George
Mallory
So from the best campsite in saas grund last week to the best in Randa this week. We are lounging in the sun and enjoying a well earned rest day - in the past 6 days we have ticked off a whopping 22 peaks from our list! It seems the mountaineering season has hit us with a bang; as our french friend put it, the conditions are "tip top!".
Nadelgrat
The next couple of days had a rather strange looking forecast; sunshine in the mornings and lightning in the afternoons. We did not really know what to make of this, but since the first day of this forecast was holding out well, with a clear night and blue-sky morning, we decided to head up to the mischabel hut and make the most of the good spells! The hut sits high up at 3340m, with a very enjoyable approach involving a via ferrata up the final rocky ridge. Arriving around midday, we waited in anticipation of the afternoon storm , but it never came! This was a great confidence boost, and we decided that we should make an early 2am start and attempt the Nadelgrat; a circular ridge route that includes four peaks over 4000m: Dirruhorn, Hohbarghorn, Stecknadelhorn and Nadelhorn.
As we set out up the hohbalmgletscher neither of us were feeling too well! I don't think it was the altitude, because we had spent a lot of time up high recently; in fact it was more likely to be the fact we had been filling our bottles with the "not drinking water" water from huts; lesson learned! We made very slow progress, and by the time we made it onto the rocky ridge, we were a couple of hours behind schedule. We left our bags at the col and made an ascent of Dirruhorn, which is usually done as a short detour before returning to the col. Again this took us almost double the guidebook time as we moved very slowly with dizzy heads, and Tim confirmed his status of "unwell" by bringing up his breakfast!
Continuing along the ridge and arriving at the summit of Hohbarghorn, I began to feel a bit outside my comfort zone for the first time on this trip. The last two peaks that we had climbed - Barre d'Ecrins and Grand Paradiso - we had shared with at least a hundred other people in stunning weather. At the time, it had felt crowded, but I think there is a certain amount of reassurance that exists in crowds, which I only began to appreciate now that we were totally alone. We had not seen anyone else the whole day, and the isolation felt intimidating; were we not supposed to be there? From the summit of Hohbarghorn, the fastest way back to the hut is to complete the ridge circuit, and this carried a rather scary feeling of commitment. As we were taking a lot longer than expected, we new we wouldn't make it back to the hut by midday, and so the impending "afternoon storm" was an added concern, although the weather looked to be holding out.
We continued along the ridge, finally reaching the summit of Stecknadelhorn. After descending to the col, the guidebook suggested that "tired parties" could avoid the rocky ridge to the summit of Nadelhorn, instead traversing around the mountain and arriving at the snowy north-east ridge. Well we decided that definitely applied to us! Reaching the north-east ridge, we summoned up the energy to plod up to the summit, and were completely delighted and exhausted to have achieved our goal. But the day was not over yet, as we still had to descend over 2500m on foot! As we arrived back at the Mischabelle hut, we found ourselves engulfed by mist and the first raindrops began to fall. We rewarded ourselves with a glass of coke at the hut, before descending the via ferrata in pouring rain. However, as we arrived back in Saas Fee with aching knees, the skies miraculously cleared and the sun came out to say "well done"! And there was more weather-related good news; checking the forecast at the tourist information office, we were amazed to see a bright yellow sun for the next five days! this was exactly what we had been waiting for, and we instantly scrapped the idea of a rest day , deciding that it would be a far better idea to head to Zermatt and attempt the "monte rosa circuit".
Monte Rosa
The sun was shining brightly as we got onto the "Klein Matterhorn Glacier Paradise Lift" in Zermatt. As we were carried up the mountain in what seemed like the wrong direction we grew mildly panicked that we had missed a changeover and were going to end up in the wrong place! However, the lift system did a 90degree turn, and carried us to our desired location. From the top station, it was just a two hour walk to the Rossi e Volante bivouac hut, and since the hut sits at 3750m, we were glad to have had several days of acclimatization! We arrived as guests #11 and #12, to a hut that only has ten mattresses! But our companions for the night were friendly and happily made us a space, although it was very crowded in the tiny tin hut with twelve rucksacks, one bench, and lots of pans of boiling water perched in precarious positions! We boiled up some snow for the next days drinking water, and it had a disgusting burnt flavour to it ; we realised that this is why everyone takes teabags or flavoured powder with them! not to make it extra nice, but just to make it tolerable. How unfortunate to learn this lesson at the beginning of a four night trip!
Day 1: Breithorn and Pollux
There are five summits to Breithorn on the UIAA list, and an early start saw us on top of the first - Roccia Nera, long before sunrise. Traversing westwards, we made our way over the "East Twin" and the "West Twin", which involved some interesting scrambling and a couple of abseils. The guidebook had suggested a 50m rope was required for one of the abseils, but we had decided to risk it with our 35m rope because it seemed a lot extra to carry for four days , and thankfully it was absolutely fine. As we reached the col between the West Twin and the Central Summit, it was still very cold and the sun had only just started to come up. The ridge looked a bit daunting to tackle with cold fingers, and with a quick glance at the map we decided it would be quicker and more pleasant to descend back down to the glacier shelf and climb back up the other side , thus avoiding the ridge. This decision paid off, and we had reached the Central Summit by about 8am, and continued along the snowy ridge to the West Summit. As we descended, we passed lots of parties who were making their way up the mountain from the Klein Matterhorn lift. The West summit of breithorn is one of the most frequently climbed 4000m peaks, facilitated by the lift which leaves only a two hour walk to the summit.
We passed underneath the bivouac hut and headed in the direction of Pollux. From afar, it looked like a very long rocky ridge, but this was deceptive, as there was actually a long snow gully tucked in behind the ridge which we followed most of the way up the mountain. The final 50m or so is a steep rock climb, made much easier by some fixed ropes which we decided to tackle via feratta style. A final snow plod leads to the summit.
We were back at the bivouac hut by about 1pm, where we were planning to spend another night. We wondered how many people would be joining us; it was a Friday night after all, and it had been crowded the night before! We waited in anticipation, but as the hours ticked by, nobody arrived and we began to wonder if we might have it to ourselves. Drifting off to sleep, I was still half expecting the door to open and a rowdy party to walk in, but it never happened and we got a great night's sleep!
Day 2: Castor and Liskamm
We awoke to another clear morning, and set of at a brisk pace to reach the summit of Castor as the sun came up. From the top of Castor, we were able to see over to Liskamm, which would be our second objective for the day. Liskamm is a huge mountain, composed of two summits (East and West) separated by a 1km ridge. This was to be our most technical climb within the Monta Rosa Circuit, with the ascent, traverse, and descent all receiving grade "AD". According to wikipedia, the mountain is nicknamed Menschenfresser (man eater) due to the many cornices and frequent avalanches that occur on the ridge; however, as previously mentioned, the conditions for us were tip top! and we had a superb time traversing the mountain. At times, the exposure on the knife edge ridge was quite breathtaking, and it was an exhilarating experience!
We arrived at the Giordani Bivouac hut around 12.30pm - much earlier than we had expected - but much to our dismay the hut was already full for that night! However, our companions - three French and three Italian - agreed that we could sleep downstairs in the kitchen and spared us a few blankets and a mattress, so in the end it was not too bad at all!
Day 3: Pyramid Vincent, Punta Giordani, Schwarzhorn, Ludwigshohe, Parrotspitze and Signalkuppe
This was to be our shortest and easiest day within the circuit, despite the rather large looking list of peaks above! Pyramid Vincent was a mere thirty minute walk from our bivouac hut, and its subsiduary peak Punta Giordani took deceptively long to reach via the descent of a tricky rock ridge. We then returned to the summit of Pyramid Vincent, this time via a steep snow/ice face to avoid the ridge, and passed back underneath the bivouac hut. It was only around 8am by this point, and it looked like all the spaces in the hut had already been bagged for that night - crazy!
The second half of the day involved walking up to the summit of Signalkuppe, via three detours to summit all its subsidiary peaks. From afar this looked like it would take no time at all, but it was actually quite a tiring and a bit demoralizing having to go up and down so much! Eventually we arrived on top of Signalkuppe, which at 4556m was the highest peak we had been to so far. At the top of the mountain sits the Margherita Hut, which is the highest hut in Europe and, impressively, was built over 100 years ago in 1893. At such a height, it was not surprising to see several posters hung around the hut providing information on Acute Mountain Sickness! And clearly this location comes with a premium; we were rather taken aback by the 126 euros it would have cost us for half pension, so instead tucked into our instant mashed potato, but managed to fork out 12 euros for two cans of coke!!
Day 4: Zumsteinspitze, Dufourspitze and Nordend
Our final day! We were already starting to dream of the things we would do when we returned back to civilisation - Macdonalds in Zermatt being the number one priority!
Zumsteinspitze is a subsiduary peak which is traversed on the way up Dufourspitze. The ridge up Dufourspitze receives an AD grade, but I think we met it in pretty easy conditions because there was a lot of solid snow bulking out the rocky sections. It was a very enjoyable climb, with a brilliant section of grade III climbing up a rocky slab. I think we need to sharpen our crampons at somepoint, because we have done an awful lot of rock scrambling wearing them! The summit of Dufourspitze sits at 4634m and is the highest mountain in Switzerland, and second only to Mont Blanc within Europe. Despite this impressive status, the mountain seems to remain humble amongst its surroundings, as the Monte Rosa group contains 6 of the 10 highest Alpine peaks.
The descent from the North side of Dufourspitze is facilitated by a series of fixed ropes; again we used a via ferrata technique and looped our slings around the rope. It was quite chaotic passing other parties and I can't imagine what it would be like on a busy weekend day! This lead down to a col, with a short ridge climb to reach the summit of Nordend, which had an unexpectedly spicy rock scramble to the top! It was a wonderful feeling to be stood on top of the 18th and final peak of the Monte Rosa circuit. We wondered how many parties complete the whole circuit, with all the peaks, each season and decided it couldn't be all that many. We were elated, and had been incredibly fortunate with the weather and conditions which had been absolutely perfect every single day.
As we descended the glacier towards the Monte Rosa Hut, we contemplated the size of peoples rucksacks. Some seemed absolutely massive! We were very curious as to what sort of large things people like to carry up a mountain; the best thing we saw was an absolutely massive, metal pan, which might be better described as a cauldron, attached to the outside of a mans rucksack, which could have cooked a meal for twenty people!
The descent took absolutely forever, with a final killer 300m ascent to reach the Rotenboden rail station. I have never been so overjoyed to get on a train before! It carried us comfortably back down the valley to Zermatt, where with blistered feet and tired legs we hobbled up the road to enjoy a well deserved Big Mac Meal! Clearly they like to come across as health conscious, because compared to the regular choice of 'medium', 'large' and 'supersize', our options here were 'mini', 'small' and 'medium'! So we had to settle for a medium ;)
What's Next?
Not sure! The weather has turned pretty grim, with a thunderstorm last night and a lot of snow forecast over the next few days. It is so frustrating waiting out the bad weather, and not knowing whether to try anything, or what to try, and not wanting to miss out on any opportunities! But I suppose we should just be grateful for the incredible conditions we enjoyed last week! We will probably try to climb Dom in the next couple of days and then head to the Bernese Oberland for another hut to hut tour, since we rather enjoyed the last one!
With thanks to Alpkit, MCofS, sportscotland and the Julie Tullis Memorial Award
Nadelgrat
The next couple of days had a rather strange looking forecast; sunshine in the mornings and lightning in the afternoons. We did not really know what to make of this, but since the first day of this forecast was holding out well, with a clear night and blue-sky morning, we decided to head up to the mischabel hut and make the most of the good spells! The hut sits high up at 3340m, with a very enjoyable approach involving a via ferrata up the final rocky ridge. Arriving around midday, we waited in anticipation of the afternoon storm , but it never came! This was a great confidence boost, and we decided that we should make an early 2am start and attempt the Nadelgrat; a circular ridge route that includes four peaks over 4000m: Dirruhorn, Hohbarghorn, Stecknadelhorn and Nadelhorn.
As we set out up the hohbalmgletscher neither of us were feeling too well! I don't think it was the altitude, because we had spent a lot of time up high recently; in fact it was more likely to be the fact we had been filling our bottles with the "not drinking water" water from huts; lesson learned! We made very slow progress, and by the time we made it onto the rocky ridge, we were a couple of hours behind schedule. We left our bags at the col and made an ascent of Dirruhorn, which is usually done as a short detour before returning to the col. Again this took us almost double the guidebook time as we moved very slowly with dizzy heads, and Tim confirmed his status of "unwell" by bringing up his breakfast!
Continuing along the ridge and arriving at the summit of Hohbarghorn, I began to feel a bit outside my comfort zone for the first time on this trip. The last two peaks that we had climbed - Barre d'Ecrins and Grand Paradiso - we had shared with at least a hundred other people in stunning weather. At the time, it had felt crowded, but I think there is a certain amount of reassurance that exists in crowds, which I only began to appreciate now that we were totally alone. We had not seen anyone else the whole day, and the isolation felt intimidating; were we not supposed to be there? From the summit of Hohbarghorn, the fastest way back to the hut is to complete the ridge circuit, and this carried a rather scary feeling of commitment. As we were taking a lot longer than expected, we new we wouldn't make it back to the hut by midday, and so the impending "afternoon storm" was an added concern, although the weather looked to be holding out.
We continued along the ridge, finally reaching the summit of Stecknadelhorn. After descending to the col, the guidebook suggested that "tired parties" could avoid the rocky ridge to the summit of Nadelhorn, instead traversing around the mountain and arriving at the snowy north-east ridge. Well we decided that definitely applied to us! Reaching the north-east ridge, we summoned up the energy to plod up to the summit, and were completely delighted and exhausted to have achieved our goal. But the day was not over yet, as we still had to descend over 2500m on foot! As we arrived back at the Mischabelle hut, we found ourselves engulfed by mist and the first raindrops began to fall. We rewarded ourselves with a glass of coke at the hut, before descending the via ferrata in pouring rain. However, as we arrived back in Saas Fee with aching knees, the skies miraculously cleared and the sun came out to say "well done"! And there was more weather-related good news; checking the forecast at the tourist information office, we were amazed to see a bright yellow sun for the next five days! this was exactly what we had been waiting for, and we instantly scrapped the idea of a rest day , deciding that it would be a far better idea to head to Zermatt and attempt the "monte rosa circuit".
Monte Rosa
The sun was shining brightly as we got onto the "Klein Matterhorn Glacier Paradise Lift" in Zermatt. As we were carried up the mountain in what seemed like the wrong direction we grew mildly panicked that we had missed a changeover and were going to end up in the wrong place! However, the lift system did a 90degree turn, and carried us to our desired location. From the top station, it was just a two hour walk to the Rossi e Volante bivouac hut, and since the hut sits at 3750m, we were glad to have had several days of acclimatization! We arrived as guests #11 and #12, to a hut that only has ten mattresses! But our companions for the night were friendly and happily made us a space, although it was very crowded in the tiny tin hut with twelve rucksacks, one bench, and lots of pans of boiling water perched in precarious positions! We boiled up some snow for the next days drinking water, and it had a disgusting burnt flavour to it ; we realised that this is why everyone takes teabags or flavoured powder with them! not to make it extra nice, but just to make it tolerable. How unfortunate to learn this lesson at the beginning of a four night trip!Day 1: Breithorn and Pollux
There are five summits to Breithorn on the UIAA list, and an early start saw us on top of the first - Roccia Nera, long before sunrise. Traversing westwards, we made our way over the "East Twin" and the "West Twin", which involved some interesting scrambling and a couple of abseils. The guidebook had suggested a 50m rope was required for one of the abseils, but we had decided to risk it with our 35m rope because it seemed a lot extra to carry for four days , and thankfully it was absolutely fine. As we reached the col between the West Twin and the Central Summit, it was still very cold and the sun had only just started to come up. The ridge looked a bit daunting to tackle with cold fingers, and with a quick glance at the map we decided it would be quicker and more pleasant to descend back down to the glacier shelf and climb back up the other side , thus avoiding the ridge. This decision paid off, and we had reached the Central Summit by about 8am, and continued along the snowy ridge to the West Summit. As we descended, we passed lots of parties who were making their way up the mountain from the Klein Matterhorn lift. The West summit of breithorn is one of the most frequently climbed 4000m peaks, facilitated by the lift which leaves only a two hour walk to the summit.
We passed underneath the bivouac hut and headed in the direction of Pollux. From afar, it looked like a very long rocky ridge, but this was deceptive, as there was actually a long snow gully tucked in behind the ridge which we followed most of the way up the mountain. The final 50m or so is a steep rock climb, made much easier by some fixed ropes which we decided to tackle via feratta style. A final snow plod leads to the summit.
We were back at the bivouac hut by about 1pm, where we were planning to spend another night. We wondered how many people would be joining us; it was a Friday night after all, and it had been crowded the night before! We waited in anticipation, but as the hours ticked by, nobody arrived and we began to wonder if we might have it to ourselves. Drifting off to sleep, I was still half expecting the door to open and a rowdy party to walk in, but it never happened and we got a great night's sleep!
Day 2: Castor and Liskamm
We arrived at the Giordani Bivouac hut around 12.30pm - much earlier than we had expected - but much to our dismay the hut was already full for that night! However, our companions - three French and three Italian - agreed that we could sleep downstairs in the kitchen and spared us a few blankets and a mattress, so in the end it was not too bad at all! Day 3: Pyramid Vincent, Punta Giordani, Schwarzhorn, Ludwigshohe, Parrotspitze and Signalkuppe
This was to be our shortest and easiest day within the circuit, despite the rather large looking list of peaks above! Pyramid Vincent was a mere thirty minute walk from our bivouac hut, and its subsiduary peak Punta Giordani took deceptively long to reach via the descent of a tricky rock ridge. We then returned to the summit of Pyramid Vincent, this time via a steep snow/ice face to avoid the ridge, and passed back underneath the bivouac hut. It was only around 8am by this point, and it looked like all the spaces in the hut had already been bagged for that night - crazy!
The second half of the day involved walking up to the summit of Signalkuppe, via three detours to summit all its subsidiary peaks. From afar this looked like it would take no time at all, but it was actually quite a tiring and a bit demoralizing having to go up and down so much! Eventually we arrived on top of Signalkuppe, which at 4556m was the highest peak we had been to so far. At the top of the mountain sits the Margherita Hut, which is the highest hut in Europe and, impressively, was built over 100 years ago in 1893. At such a height, it was not surprising to see several posters hung around the hut providing information on Acute Mountain Sickness! And clearly this location comes with a premium; we were rather taken aback by the 126 euros it would have cost us for half pension, so instead tucked into our instant mashed potato, but managed to fork out 12 euros for two cans of coke!!
Day 4: Zumsteinspitze, Dufourspitze and Nordend
Our final day! We were already starting to dream of the things we would do when we returned back to civilisation - Macdonalds in Zermatt being the number one priority!
Zumsteinspitze is a subsiduary peak which is traversed on the way up Dufourspitze. The ridge up Dufourspitze receives an AD grade, but I think we met it in pretty easy conditions because there was a lot of solid snow bulking out the rocky sections. It was a very enjoyable climb, with a brilliant section of grade III climbing up a rocky slab. I think we need to sharpen our crampons at somepoint, because we have done an awful lot of rock scrambling wearing them! The summit of Dufourspitze sits at 4634m and is the highest mountain in Switzerland, and second only to Mont Blanc within Europe. Despite this impressive status, the mountain seems to remain humble amongst its surroundings, as the Monte Rosa group contains 6 of the 10 highest Alpine peaks.
The descent from the North side of Dufourspitze is facilitated by a series of fixed ropes; again we used a via ferrata technique and looped our slings around the rope. It was quite chaotic passing other parties and I can't imagine what it would be like on a busy weekend day! This lead down to a col, with a short ridge climb to reach the summit of Nordend, which had an unexpectedly spicy rock scramble to the top! It was a wonderful feeling to be stood on top of the 18th and final peak of the Monte Rosa circuit. We wondered how many parties complete the whole circuit, with all the peaks, each season and decided it couldn't be all that many. We were elated, and had been incredibly fortunate with the weather and conditions which had been absolutely perfect every single day.
As we descended the glacier towards the Monte Rosa Hut, we contemplated the size of peoples rucksacks. Some seemed absolutely massive! We were very curious as to what sort of large things people like to carry up a mountain; the best thing we saw was an absolutely massive, metal pan, which might be better described as a cauldron, attached to the outside of a mans rucksack, which could have cooked a meal for twenty people!
The descent took absolutely forever, with a final killer 300m ascent to reach the Rotenboden rail station. I have never been so overjoyed to get on a train before! It carried us comfortably back down the valley to Zermatt, where with blistered feet and tired legs we hobbled up the road to enjoy a well deserved Big Mac Meal! Clearly they like to come across as health conscious, because compared to the regular choice of 'medium', 'large' and 'supersize', our options here were 'mini', 'small' and 'medium'! So we had to settle for a medium ;)
What's Next?
With thanks to Alpkit, MCofS, sportscotland and the Julie Tullis Memorial Award
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