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Archive - Geography

Collected lists

Allalinhorn - Hohlaubgrat

Date:
03.09.2023
Characteristic:
Alpine trip
Duration:
6:05h
Distance:
5.8km

Klarte å rekke en siste fjelltur før hjemreise og det ble en chill dag på Allalinhorn via sin nordøstrygg, kjent også som Hohlaubgrat. Jeg hadde gått denne ruten før for 9 år siden med en fjellguide, i 2014 men jeg husker den som en ganske enkel tur og tenkte det kunne vært et greit turmål å prøve meg på igjen. Fikk med meg Nathan, og både Anna og Dev ble med så vi klatret som 2 taulag. Tok bussen fra Saas Almagell kl0630 på en ellers stille og fin søndagsmorgen men endte opp i kø for å ta heisen opp til Felskinn pga en invasjon av tenåringer som hadde skitrening oppe i løypene. Heldigvis tok det ikke lang tid før vi fikk plass på Mittelallalintoget og vi ble satt på Hohlaubstasjonen omtrent halvveis mellom Felskinn og Mittelallalin (man må be om å komme av her før >>>

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Weissmies

Date:
01.09.2023
Characteristic:
Alpine trip
Duration:
13:50h
Distance:
13.3km

Været i starten av uka var mye preget av nordavind, uvanlig kaldt vær og mye nedbør, som til slutt endte opp med opp mot 1m nysnø på de høyeste toppene og det snødde helt ned til Saas Grund på 1600m (!), noe som førte til at SLF utstedet et skredvarsel. Uansett, det var på en måte flaks for de 12 deltakerne i gruppe 1, meg selv inkludert - som skulle ha trening i bl.a redning fra bresprekk disse to dagene når været var på sitt dårligste. Det var også uflaks at været var såpass dårlig at vi ikke fikk komme oss opp i høyden for å trene i på en ordentlig bre. Etter treningen var noen av oss ganske gira på en tur opp sørryggen på Weissmies, en alpintur som er vanligvis ganske enkel med opp mot grad 2 klyving og ingen bre som må krysses. Jeg har gått denne ruten et par >>>

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Jegihorn

Date:
25.08.2023
Characteristic:
Hike
Duration:
3:30h
Distance:
5.6km

Back in the Saas valley for the Alpine Club (UK) aspirants meet. Went up the Jegihorn to make a start in getting acclimatised (again) and stretch the legs after a long day travelling the previous day. Had a nice surprise on the summit when Jamie Holding turned up with 2 guests. He had led the trip to Ama Dablam 5 years ago and I'd not seen him since leaving base camp! Good to catch up with him before going back down.

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Aiguille Blanche de Peuterey

Date:
07.07.2023
Characteristic:
Alpine climbing
Duration:
12:33h
Distance:
12.0km

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 >>>

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Dom

Date:
03.07.2023
Characteristic:
Alpine trip
Duration:
13:38h
Distance:
16.1km

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 >>>

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Mont Blanc du Tacul - Contamine Grisolle

Date:
29.06.2023
Characteristic:
Alpine climbing
Duration:
6:45h
Distance:
7.5km

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 >>>

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Mont Maudit - Kuffner Arete

Date:
26.06.2023
Characteristic:
Alpine climbing
Duration:
12:15h
Distance:
13.9km

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 >>>

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Nordend

Date:
24.06.2023
Characteristic:
Alpine trip
Duration:
10:10h
Distance:
11.0km

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 >>>

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Aiguille Verte - Whymper Couloir

Date:
18.06.2023
Characteristic:
Alpine climbing
Duration:
11:00h
Distance:
9.0km

After acclimatising in the Saas valley I was originally supposed to head over to Evolene on the saturday and meet up with British mountain guide Tim Neill and climb with him for a couple of weeks again. I was really looking forward to this as it had been a few years since he’d been out in the Alps for the summer season. We had been keeping in contact during the week about potential objectives, and as things turned out it looked like there would be a weather window for doing the Whymper couloir on the Aiguille Verte on the saturday/sunday after my trip up the Lagginhorn. I had hoped to have had two good nights sleep down in the valley before embarking on another 4000er like the Verte, but as most of the routes on the Aiguille Verte are a bit tricky to get in good condition this opportunity >>>

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Lagginhorn

Date:
15.06.2023
Characteristic:
Hike
Duration:
6:50h
Distance:
8.6km

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 >>>

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