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Collected lists

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Weisshorn

Date:
25.07.2019
Characteristic:
Alpine climbing
Duration:
9:54h
Distance:
8.2km

The Weisshorn has been on my list of peaks I’ve wanted to climb for a while, mainly because it’s big, requires a bit of effort to reach and beautiful. It stands out from its neighbouring peaks and is hard to miss from any angle. And to quote the late Martin Moran in his 4000m peaks guidebook, “The lofty pyramid of the Weisshorn is considered to be the finest of all the Alpine peaks by many connoisseurs who disdain the public glories of the Matterhorn and who ignore the greater quality and variety of climbs on Mont Blanc”. I guess this is not too bad a description of my attitude… Anyway, with a reputation such as this it would be hard to not want to climb it at some point :) Due to the weather forecast for Friday having been changed to somewhat less stable weather, it seemed like the >>>

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Lenzspitze - Nadelhorn traverse

Date:
23.07.2019
Characteristic:
Alpine climbing
Duration:
8:00h
Distance:
5.8km

With a pretty good looking weather forecast for the week after we’d come down from the Dent d’Herens there didn’t seem to be any reason to stop ticking off some good quality 4000m peak ridge traverses. So after having taking a rest day in Evolene the next plan on my «wishlist» was to climb the east-northeast ridge of the Lenzspitze and continue the traverse to the Nadelhorn, returning down its easy northeast ridge. Tim had done the northeast face of the Lenzspitze before and the traverse to the Nadelhorn but not the east-northeast ridge so he was psyched for giving it a go (generally he’s psyched for most things regardless of whether he’s done it before or not though)! We left Evolene again relatively early for the drive over to Saas Fee and parked up just outside the town. The >>>

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Dent d'Hérens

Date:
20.07.2019
Characteristic:
Alpine climbing
Duration:
8:35h
Distance:
21.0km

After returning to Courmayeur from the Torino hut the plan was to stay somewhere in Italy for the night so we could head straight to the Dent d’Herens the following day. We’d initially planned to book some beds at the Prarayer refuge which is about 1 hour along the walk in to the Aosta refuge, but we instead opted to go all the way back to Evolene since most people were away at huts so the chalet would be empty and quiet!! It turned out to be a good choice, at least for me since I woke up the next day feeling very well rested and ready for the 3-hour drive back into Italy and up to the Lago di Place Moulin where the long walk in began. It was another warm and sunny day, in contrast to the clouds that meteoblue had forecasted, so I was somewhat dreading having to do a long walk up to the >>>

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Dôme & Aiguille de Rochefort

Date:
18.07.2019
Characteristic:
Alpine climbing
Duration:
10:05h
Distance:
8.6km

After coming back to Evolene from Saas Almagell there was a bit of a swap with guides so for the remainder of the 10 days I was going to be climbing again with Tim Neill whom I’d had a great week with in 2018. First on the plan was to make a new attempt to do the Rochefort traverse over Aiguilles de Rochefort and Dome de Rochefort – and fortunately there were beds available at the Torino hut for the following night when we wanted to get up there. The drive from Evolene to Courmayeaur took a couple of hours via the Grand St. Bernard pass and driving around through Aosta and finally northward to Courmayeur where we did a quick shopping trip at a local supermarket. Having gotten used to grocery shopping at Norwegian and Swiss prices, Italy seemed super cheap! We then hopped onto the Skyway >>>

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Weissmies

Date:
16.07.2019
Characteristic:
Alpine climbing
Duration:
6:00h

Back in the Alps again for my 10th summer visit, and like the previous 3 years with a base again in Evolene. I felt semi-acclimatised after having spent a few days hiking up to 3200m in the Saas valley the week before and since I’d arranged to have 1:1 guiding this year I was keen to tick off a few more of the 4000m peaks. For the first trip I was climbing with guide Graham Frost who I’d done the Dent Blanche with back in 2016 and initially I’d suggested heading over to the Torino hut to start with the Rochefort Arete since both the Aiguille de Rochefort and Dome de Rochefort were relatively low 4000ers and easy to access. However, since the Torino hut was fully booked and it had dumped it down with new snow on the first night we ended up joining guides Tim and Jon who were working for >>>

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Ober Gabelhorn

Date:
15.08.2018
Characteristic:
Alpine climbing
Duration:
12:00h

The weather was pretty wet on the Monday after we’d done the Gastlosen traverse, so we had ended up doing two short climbs at Bramois just outside of Sion and then going to the nearest cafe to plan the remainder of the week. Basically the weather was going to still be a little damp on Tuesday but both Wednesday and Thursday were looking good with a fairly high degree of certainty on meteoblue.com. The logical thing to do (in my mind at least) was to go to a hut where we could do two days of climbing and make the most of the good weather days, and the Rothorn hut seemed like the perfect solution since it gives access to both the Ober Gabelhorn and Zinalrothorn, two beautiful (and pointy) 4000m peaks which I have wanted to climb for much too long! The north face of the Ober Gabelhorn is a particularly >>>

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Jegihorn

Date:
10.08.2018
Characteristic:
Sport climbing
Duration:
4:00h

For the final day of the week climbing with Tim we left Evolene at 7.30am and headed over to Saas Grund to do a quick climb up the Jegihorn. Well, actually the intention was never to make it a quick climb, but that's how it turned out anyway. After driving through thick valley fog for most of the way we were still optimistic that the weather would be much better up high (assuming the webcam at Hohsaas we had checked was not from a previous sunny day!) and after getting off at Kreuzboden (ca. 2400m) we were met by somewhat better visibility and the odd glimpse of blue sky. In any case it was a very pleasant temperature to walk to the base of the climbing routes in. I think we used around an hour to do the approach walk (about 500m elevation gain) in a relaxed pace. Once we arrived at the foot >>>

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Grand Combin

Date:
09.08.2018
Characteristic:
Alpine climbing
Duration:
7:45h

The Grand Combin ended up being the major summit of the week climbing with Tim and we were also joined by Janine and aspirant mountain guide Jack. It was nice to have another female for company, although when the other female has previously been on the British skimo racing team it made me a bit nervous about the pace we’d be hiking up to the Valsorey hut in ;) We left Evolene at around 9am on the wednesday and stopped at Martigny to pick up Jack before continuing the journey up to Bourg St. Bernard where the trail to the hut starts. With about 1200m of height gain it’s regarded as one of the "longer" hut walks and fortunately that means it also ends up being quieter. There was only a group of three female hikers and another couple other than us staying at the hut that evening. >>>

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Aiguille Sans Nom

Date:
07.08.2018
Characteristic:
Alpine climbing
Duration:
8:30h

After our day trip to Pointe de Tsalion the weather forecast was checked again and the conclusion was still the same as before; fine in the mornings but high likelihood of heavy rain and thunderstorms in the afternoons. Tuesday morning wasn’t looking too great either so we made a decision to head for the Orny hut where there were numerous options for less committing and shorter climbs than compared with for example a 4000m peak. I’d stayed at the Orny hut once before and I guess it’s pleasant enough with easy access from the lift at Champex-Lac and there is plenty of climbing to do close to the hut and also further up the valley around the Trient plateau. We had in mind to do the south ridge of the Aiguille Sans Nom (3444m), one of several tops in the Aiguilles Dorées (translates into >>>

Pointe de Tsalion

Date:
05.08.2018
Characteristic:
Alpine climbing
Duration:
11:00h

For the past 5 years I have tended to spend my annual summer holiday in the Alps climbing with a guide and in keeping with tradition I did the same this year with Evolene as the main base for 2 weeks. I’d been paired up with David for the first half of the week and British mountain guide Tim Neill. David’s climbing CV was probably at least 5 times longer than mine so it was going to prove a challenge to decide on climbing objectives to do which he hadn’t already done! With somewhat unstable weather forecasted for the week we ended up making the most of the good weather for our first day and headed off to Arolla at 6am to do a day trip up Pointe de Tsalion and climb the route Voie de la Cabane (D-), which basically follows a not-so-prominent spine that goes up the west side of the mountain. >>>

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