Vengsøytraversen i midnattsola

Date:

24.07.2023

Characteristic:

Hike

Duration:

7:00h

Distance:

12.2km

© Hannah Vickers Det hadde vært 10 år siden sist jeg gikk Vengsøytraversen i midnattsola for første gang og jeg fikk veldig lyst til å gå den igjen nå som sommerværet i Nord Norge var på sitt beste siden omtrent 2014 (??!). Agathe, som jeg hadde blitt kjent med i vår, var også gira på å være med så vi avtalte å treffes etter jobb på en helt vanlig mandag for å rekke ferga fra Belvika kl17.10. Vi fant ut at det var gratis å ta bilen på ferga, så vi bestemte oss for å utnytte muligheten til å ta med telt og andre luksus ting selv om vi ikke skulle ligge i telt veldig lenge. Parkerte bilen ved grendehuset og tuslet vestover langs veien til vi kom til starten av stien som ligger på østsiden av Storelva. Etter en veldig tørr og varm sommer var bakken blitt helt knustørr, inkludert myrpartiet >>>

Finnlandsfjellet

Date:

23.07.2023

Lillebaugen tradklatring - Fort Hjort

Date:

22.07.2023

Finnlandsfjellet x 1.5

Date:

17.07.2023

Buren

Date:

13.07.2023

Aiguille Blanche de Peuterey

Date:

07.07.2023

Characteristic:

Alpine climbing

Duration:

12:33h

Distance:

12.0km

© Hannah Vickers The Aiguille Blanche de Peuterey. I remember first hearing about this peak, which is located on the italian side of Mont Blanc, around 5 years ago when Tim was telling me about the time he’d guided it with one of his colleagues. It sounded like a proper adventure just to get to it and an overall cool outing with its reputation as being one of the trickier 4000ers. As things turned out, it was also the last 4000er I had to do, so it seemed quite fitting to have saved the best until last ;-) Up until this point it felt like I’d been quite fortunate with the weather and really great snow conditions this year, and the remainder of my final holiday week looked like it would give us good enough weather for an attempt at the Aiguille Blanche. After descending the Dom we had an easy tuesday and drove >>>

Dom

Date:

03.07.2023

Characteristic:

Alpine trip

Duration:

13:38h

Distance:

16.1km

© Hannah Vickers Following a couple of days of bad weather, it looked like we would be getting a couple of days of good weather again for the final week of the holiday. As I now only had two more summits to go to complete the 50 principal 4000m peaks of the Alps it was basically a toss up between the Dom and the Aiguille Blanche de Peuterey. I’d been following the weather forecast for the respective peaks rather closely and had come to the conclusion that the weather would be better further east at the start of the this final week, with apparently more sun and less wind forecasted for the Dom than on for example the Tour Ronde, which was the closest peak I could find to the Aiguille Blanche de Peuterey in the meteoblue database. I’d earlier hoped that the Taschhorn-Dom traverse would be a possibility this >>>

Mont Blanc du Tacul - Contamine Grisolle

Date:

29.06.2023

Characteristic:

Alpine climbing

Duration:

6:45h

Distance:

7.5km

© Hannah Vickers I’d originally thought that Mont Blanc du Tacul could be easily tagged on the way back from doing the Kuffner Ridge on Mont Maudit, but we ended up binning that idea as I was pretty exhausted and couldn’t face any more unnecessary uphills than we needed to do... And since there are nicer ways to tag the summit than slogging up from the Col Maudit it seemed like a much better idea to come back with fresh legs after having a few days rest and climb one of the more interesting routes on the Triangle du Tacul. After two days rest I felt ready to climb a mountain again but by this time the stable summer weather we’d had for nearly a week was starting to break down, and so for the thursday we really only had until midday to climb the mountain and get back before the forecasted thunderstorms >>>

Mont Maudit - Kuffner Arete

Date:

26.06.2023

Characteristic:

Alpine climbing

Duration:

12:15h

Distance:

13.9km

© Hannah Vickers The Kuffner ridge on Mont Maudit has been sitting on my “wishlist” for a number of years; not just because Mont Maudit is also on the 4000m list, but because of what I’d heard from other people and seen cool pictures from the route. Moreover, the route description opens with “This is one of the finest ridge climbs in the Alps, combining snow aretes with interesting mixed sections and unfolds amongst scenery of the highest order....”. After a binned attempt in June 2022 (we only got as far as Cirque Maudit after a night with no decent refreeze) I was super keen to make the most of any opportunity with good weather and snow conditions this year. Since the Col de la Fourche bivouac hut got swept down off the ridge and destroyed last summer by rockfall, our only options were to start >>>

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 >>>