The Matterhorn, #2...

I just popped back over to Zermatt with Geoff W from England, for a strategically-planned attack on the Matterhorn's Hornli ridge. Geoff and I have climbed a bunch of things before, and I know he's been drooling over the Matterhorn for some time now. So we decide to put that skeleton in the closet to rest... 

We got a nice, lazy, late afternoon start from Zermatt, up the Schwarsee lift and onward to the Hornli hut. We stopped to take photos and nibble on Toblerone chocolate, but the strong winds and light rain made us want to hustle. The gloomy weather stressed me out - it wasn't forecasted! 

Team America (Adam George, Todd Passey, and Kevin Mahoney) was present at the hut, along with about a dozen local swiss guides. Every 6:30 pm in the Hornli hut, there is a mandatory "aperativo" for the guides. This is designed so that we can make peace with one another. One guide is far less likely to smack another in the face if the two have shared a glass of wine the night before.

For anyone who has ever climbed the Matterhorn from the Hornli hut during a nice, summer, high-pressure system, you already know how iconic and unique the morning routine is: 4:00am wakeup (no sooner or you risk being slapped), 4:08 breakfast, and 4:14 (and 30 seconds) departure from the hut. Deviation from the time-plan is punishable by flogging and threats to make you sleep outside the hut next time.

At 4:00 the hut was instantaneously awakend... except for those goonies in room 15 who set their alarm at 3:15 so they could faff and make noise 45 minutes early... Geoff was two stale bread-slices into breakfast by the time I walked down the stairs (my morning contact lens routine makes me 2.4 minutes slower than the other guides...). I ate one slice of bread, slurped half a cup of instant coffee, spilled the rest on my shirt, and tied Geoff into the end of my rope. Geoff and I left at our appointed time, with a fairly favorable pole position of guided team 12 (or so...). A line of headlamps belonging to the stalwart "campers" from eastern Europe bobbed - slightly off-route - about 300m above us... 

We made it to the Solvay Shelter in good time, passing said headlamp-bobbers along the way (while saying "Dzień dobry"), and scratching up the lower Mosely slab without too much difficulty. We added our crampons at about 4150m, and scampered up the fixed lines to the summit snowfields with nary a hindrance from other teams. It's good to be ahead of the pack! I have learned (the hard way) from previous experiences that a 30-minute faff session at the start of the day can lead to several hours of lost time by the end (do to being passed early by slow, inefficient, and sorta unsafe recreational groups).

No offense to "recreational climbers" as I am a recreational climber my self (during rest days!) but if you are climbing the Matterhorn's Horli ridge, and you've never been there before, AND you leave before the guided parties, prepare for a stiff tongue-lashing by a Zermatt guide as they elbow past you like you're standing still. Poor route-finding in the dark on the lower mountain creates rock fall hazards for those of us below. I won't give you a tongue-lashing, however, because I'm not a Zermatt guide, and because my self-esteem issues make it hard for me to yell at people. I will give you the stink-eye though...

Geoff chilling at the Solvay shelter at sunrise. Halfway there!Geoff just above the "uber Moselyplatte"Fellow ex-pat American guide Adam George and his client Kristin moving up the ridge onto the "shoulder"we're 150 meters below the summit, yanking on fixed lines in a very "Tarzan-esque" way...

We topped out at 8:20am, a fairly good time to be on the summit! 4 hours exactly... A streamer of fast-moving stratus was wrapped around the north face. Clear skies prevailed over Italy. Strangely, the stiff winds we encountered on the summit snow fields were almost nil on the summit. Well, maybe that isn't strange. It seems to happen on a lot of summits, doesn't it?

The obligatory summit shot - yes Geoff really is a foot taller than me!
Geoff and I embarked on our 5-hour descent (yes, the descent usually takes longer than the ascent), dealing with the traffic jams at the fixed lines as best we could. We wore our crampons until low on the mountain once again - albeit not as low as David and I had to wear them on our stormy descent last week.

During the descent we stopped for a quick snack at the Solvay. Geoff took the opportunity to survey which other Swiss peaks he'd like to conquer during future visits... 

Upon arrival at the hut, Geoff drank his obligatory cokes, and I ate my obligatory Rösti! 'Twas a job well done! Now I get a year to conjure up some adventurous alpine endeavours for Geoff's next visit!

Western Bernese Oberland traverse with Mountain Tracks

After my fun two-day tour with Ben Bardsley, I headed back up to Les Diablerets and the Col du Pilon to guide Ishbel, Phillip, Andrew, and Jacob on the Mountain Tracks Wild Western Berner tour. Compared to my previous tour, things did get a bit "western".

Our first day was spent practicing avalanche rescue and steep skinning techniques during a particularly robust foehn wind. The foehn is an unfortunate reality in the alps. When the warm, mediteranean wind gets sucked northward by a deep low over north central europe, the skiing gets crappy, the wind  strips powder off of the south faces and saturates the snowpack up to a suprisingly high elevation for late winter (2800 meters in this case).

Our second day was clear, cool, and sunny. We rode the Glacier 3000 lift up to the Sex Rouge, skied down the Tsanfleuron glacier, and toured up to the top of the Arpellistock. This time, instead of continuing east in a rando-racer-inspired panic, we dropped down to the Gelternhütte for afternoon Rosti and a warm bed to sleep in.

descending the Tsanfleuron

Ascending the ArpeligratSkiing the north face of the ArpelistockThe Gelternhütte

Our third day began with the arrival of a real storm out of the north. Bad visibility, high winds, and 5-10cm of fresh. We left the hut at a normal post-breakfast 6:30am, hoping we could figure out a way to get over the Wildhorn and down to the Wildhornhütte, but by the time we reached the Col du Brochet, we realized it was not meant to be. I was blown backwards up a hill while trying to ski down it. That's a strong headwind. We confined ourselves to the sheltered north side, skied a fairly good run off of the Gelternhorn, and retreated to the Gelternhütte for more rösti  and tea.

Day four brought no improvement. A lenticular enveloped the upper Wildhorn, and high winds were evident. We were already a day behind schedule and needed to make some progress. Plan B involved skiing down towards the german-speaking village of Launen, where a construction worker drove us the last 5km to hot coffees and a bus stop. From Launen, we bused to Gstaad, took a train to Zweissimmen and then to Lenke, and finally a taxi up to to Iffingenalp. From here we were able to skin up to the Wildhornhütte in just three hours.

When the going gets tough, the smart ones take a train to the next valley.

Day five was one of the only "storm days" we've managed to experience this dry season in the alps. Several cm fell north of the Oberland crest, while at least double that fell to the south. 40cm+ fell on the Valais. We teamed up with Graham McMahon on an all-day white-out tour to the Wildstrubelhütte. Stability was good enough - but just good enough - to cover the exposed terrain next to the Wildhorn, across the schneedjoch, and down towards the drainage below the Wildstrubelhütte. In my vain attempts to break a good trail in a whiteout, I became disoriented and skied off of two small cornices during the day. Setting track in the white room is never easy, and one mustn't take it for granted. My GPS told me where to go when I needed it to, but microterrain features, such as wind lips, etc, could always trip me up. Disgusted with the sudden feeling of freefall, I resorted to the traditional AK-style flycasting technique of tying a  20-foot cordalette to my ski pole tip, and flicking it forward across the great white.

No this isn't the Western Oberland. It's Joe Stock flycasting his way through a whiteout in the heavily glaciated Neacola Range, Alaska, in 2006.

Yours Truly, truly trying to figure out which way to go. As inspired by "who wants to be a Millionaire" one can also use audience participation to answer the critical question of "where is the hut?"Skinning through the final murk before arriving at the Wildstrubelhütte
Hours later, after an exhausting route-finding challenge past the iffingenalp military cable car station, we found the Wildstrubelhütte - with less than 50m of visibility. Snowfall intensified, stability was poor, and our following day's plan of traversing the Wildstrubel became unadviseable.

On Day six, we took the safe option and descended to Sierre via the Grand Montana ski pistes. The beer at the bottom had a taste quality proportional to the effort it took to get there. And the company was good! Thanks to Phillip, Ishbel, Andrew, Jacob, and Mountain Tracks for a good trip!

Following Mr McMahon's immaculate skin track towards the Weisshorn. Nearing the summit military installation on the Weisshorn. Yes we did manage to ski one wind-packed powder run on our way to the Grand Montana pistes.