Nordend

Date:

24.06.2023

Characteristic:

Alpine trip

Duration:

10:10h

Distance:

11.0km

© Hannah Vickers Nordend is one of the 50 major 4000m summits listed in Martin Moran’s guidebook to the 4000m peaks of the Alps, despite having a prominence of less than 100m, so it was on my to-do list for this summer even though given the choice I’d rather have done a ski-assisted ascent much like I’d done on the Dufourspitze a couple of years earlier. After almost an entire week of strong gales and a storm depositing new snow up high I’d originally wanted to use the new weather window to go and climb the Kuffner Arete on Mont Maudit, but since both the Torino and Cosmiques huts were full for friday and saturday night, we ended up heading to Nordend first since there was still many availabe beds in the Monte Rosa hut, which had literally just opened for the summer season. We drove over to Zermatt >>>

Lagginhorn

Date:

15.06.2023

Characteristic:

Hike

Duration:

6:50h

Distance:

8.6km

© Hannah Vickers I had planned to head up the Lagginhorn for acclimatisation quite far in advance, and so booked a place in the Weissmies hut before I'd even left Norway. It was quite lucky then that I'd struck a nice weather window this week. Had a nice relaxing walk up to the hut on the wednesday, and was welcomed by the hut guardian Roberto just as I arrived and for some reason he already seemed to know who I was. When I asked how, he replied that I was the only person booked to stay at the hut that night - a bit of a novelty! As the day went on, another group of 3 (one guide and two Swiss guests) turned up, so I wasn't eating dinner alone that evening, but I did get an entire empty dormitory for myself ;-) Had a great night's sleep until 4am the following morning, then had a relaxed breakfast. The other >>>

Jegihorn

Date:

12.06.2023

Characteristic:

Hike

Duration:

4:00h

© Hannah Vickers Første dag i Saas Grund etter en lang reise sørover fra Tromsø. Tok gondolen opp til Kreuzboden og gikk opp mot Jegihorn for å få meg en liten akklimatiseringstur. Var fint vær og godt å se et ordentlig snødekke på de fleste fjellene! For en gangs skyld så Lagginhorn ganske spennende ut, mesteparten av vestryggen var snødekt og det var et pent spor som strakk seg langs hele vestryggen :-) Fulgte blå/hvit skilting oppover og tok mange pauser underveis. Kroppen kjente på at den hadde blitt transportert ganske raskt fra havnivå til over 3000 moh! Det lå en del snø på ruten som gjorde det litt mer tidkrevende men den var stort sett fast and fint å gå på, ihvertfall i 10-11 tiden (var betydelig bløtere på turen ned). Angret litt på at jeg tok gåstavene opp til toppen da de >>>

Lagginhorn

Date:

11.07.2022

Characteristic:

Hike

Duration:

6:20h

Distance:

10.4km

© Hannah Vickers I had a few days to spare before I should have been flying home (thanks to SAS I didn't and got delayed by an extra 9 days instead) and decided to go for a last visit to 4000m and hike up the Lagginhorn via the west ridge. Had expected a little more scrambling but it turned out to be just a walk. In comparison to the Weissmies south ridge this was a bit dull but a well marked, nice walk nonetheless and the views were OK! 5h 40m up and back to the Weissmies hut, then a break before walking down to the lift t Kreuzboden.

Täschhorn

Date:

08.07.2022

Characteristic:

Alpine climbing

Duration:

9:35h

Distance:

14.8km

© Hannah Vickers The final two days climbing with Graham this year were planned to be spent on the Täschhorn-Dom traverse, although when we left Evolene early on the thursday morning the weather forecast was indicating pretty strong winds up high for both days and I was a bit concerned about whether it would end up being too much wind for doing an exposed ridge traverse. We decided to stick with the plan and see how things turned out anyway. We were planning to do the traverse and descend all the way back down to the valley in one day, so a lot of food was packed both for snacks and for dinner/breakfast at the Mischabeljoch bivouac hut, which was the starting point for the south ridge of the Täschhorn. Originally we’d thought to go up to the bivouac hut by starting from Täschalp and hiking up the Weingarten >>>

Cabane Des Dix

Date:

26.06.2022

Weissmies

Date:

25.06.2022

Characteristic:

Alpine trip

Duration:

8:49h

Distance:

14.0km

© Hannah Vickers I've been wanting to do a "proper" alpine route solo for a few years and the south ridge of the Weissmies seemed to be a friendly option for a first solo route. I'd done it a couple of years earlier when it was plastered in new snow, but after last weekend's heatwave most ridges were now dry and clear of snow so it appeared to be an ideal opportunity to do it again. I booked a night at the Almageller hut and half expected to be the only British person there, but I ended up meeting quite a few other British guys there and had a much more social afternoon than expected chatting with them in the dining room. Had breakfast at 4am the following morning and thought I would end up behind queues of other climbers on the approach to the Zwichbergenpass, but they were taking so long to get ready >>>

Breithorn

Date:

04.06.2022

© Hannah Vickers Kjekt å flytte hjemmekontor til alpene i et par uker ;-)

Col de l'Eveque

Date:

23.05.2022

Bishorn East ridge

Date:

06.07.2021

Characteristic:

Alpine trip

Duration:

10:03h

Distance:

21.6km

© Hannah Vickers After having come back from Lyskamm, there looked like there might be a possibility of a new weather window on the tuesday the following week, but it wasn’t going to be a very long weather window, with more bad weather arriving already in the afternoon, ruling out any long and committing routes. After much pondering, checking of weather forecasts and consultations with Martin Moran’s 4000m guidebook I arrived at the conclusion that the East ridge of the Bishorn might be a suitable objective, since it would provide a more interesting line of ascent than the standard easy trudge up from the Tracuit hut, and the descent down the Turtmann glacier would be straightforward and quick(ish) though quite long. I ran the suggestion past Graham and we ended up settling on this as a plan and booked >>>