Weisshorn (25.07.2019)
Written by hmsv1 (Hannah Vickers)
| Start point | Weisshorn hut (2,923m) |
|---|---|
| Characteristic | Alpine climbing |
| Duration | 9h 54min |
| Distance | 8.2km |
| Vertical meters | 1,570m |
| GPS |
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| Ascents | Weisshorn (4,506m) | 25.07.2019 |
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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 last two days climbing with Tim would have to be straight after having done the Lenzspitze-Nadelhorn traverse on Tuesday afternoon and I was for a long time very unsure whether I’d be a bit fatigued to do another 4000er straight after, now that we’d already done 6 with only 1 rest day in between. The Weisshorn gives one of the biggest hut walks and summit days that can be found in the Valais alps with 1600m of ascent on both days, so doing this at the end of the holiday seemed like both a superb way to finish the trip but also a bit of a tiring choice. I spent some time wondering whether we ought to go for a different 4000er in the area with not quite such a big summit day instead. Zinalrothorn maybe? Anyway, I’d already booked the Weisshorn hut when we’d had the long afternoon at the Mischabel hut, so I didn’t have the guts to cancel and back out now…
After a good breakfast in the hotel in Tasch we left at around 8am to drive the short distance down the road to Randa, where the walk in to the Weisshorn hut began. We parked up in the underground car park and then walked across the river to start the walk, which ascends nonstop right up to the hut in a series of many zig zags up through the forest. Like with all the other hut walks, we started off the day in slow and steady pace and after an hour took the first drink stop of the day. It had been forecasted to be pretty hot down in the valley (something like 28 degrees in Zermatt and 37 in Sion!) so it was good to gain height early in the day and avoid getting roasted. Nevertheless it was already warm so it helped that we spent a lot of time in the trees. After about 700m of ascent we got above the treeline and took another stop at a place called Jatz where there was some sort of hut and a fountain where you could fill up a bottle with water. It felt like the first half of the hut walk had been very easy so far, so I was quite optimistic about the rest of the day. My legs felt surprisingly OK! The rest of the walk up to the hut was more of the same, though with a bit more of a view now that we were out of the trees. The trail crossed a small stream further up and then went around the corner into another valley. Big glaciers and pointy mountains came into view and I felt a bit more at home again. A couple of people passed us on the way up, including a Swiss guide and his client (no guesses who we overtook the following day!?) and a couple who were doing a day hike up to the Weisshorn hut. We carried on in our talking pace regardless and eventually reached the hut at 1.30pm. In total it was 6.5km and 1570m from Randa but both Tim and I felt like we were ready for another lap when we arrived.
Having arrived early at the hut has both advantages and disadvantages, the main plus point being that we had plenty of time to relax and recover before the summit day and the disadvantage being that there was a bit too much time with not so much reading material! At least there was 4G coverage and a bit of internet surfing to pass the time was never going to do any harm :) Dinner was reasonably early at 6pm since we would be having breakfast at 2am again and we had soup, meat and rice and a bit of cake for dessert. Then off to bed – and this time I didn’t really care if I didn’t get a good night’s sleep since it was the last time I’d be sleeping in a hut on this holiday. At least there weren’t many people staying up at the hut for the night – around 10 people I counted in the dining room, so I hoped it wouldn’t be quite as warm and noisy as it had been at some of the other huts.
2am came round quickly and I was feeling pretty excited about the day ahead. The mountain I’d wanted to climb for ages was finally going to get a visit from me and my expectations were high :) Managed to drink not just one but two bowls of coffee this morning so it was hopefully going to be enough caffeine for a few hours. Outside it was warm. Really warm – like vest top and shorts kind of warm. I didn’t even bother to get changed this morning because it was so warm outside, which seemed to concern the one of the Swiss guides who thought I’d forgot to put trousers on when we were getting ready to leave! (it stayed so warm I wore only a vest top and shorts all the way up to the start of the final snow ridge at about 4200m). The other Swiss guide who was at the hut had already left with his Scottish guy – in typical Zermatt guide style he’d clearly made sure they were the first ones out….
We left by around 2.30am and the first part of the day was a nice gentle approach walk along a narrow trail, crossing some patches of snow along the way until we reached the start of a steeper section with a sort of fixed rope at the start. After an initial haul up some slabs we met the trail again which weaved its way around what was a steep rock wall (only found this out when we came down in the daylight). It was in retrospect perhaps a good thing to not know quite what sort of drop was at the side of us along that section! This later gave way to some easier walking and scrambling over boulders with the odd patch of snow in-between. Soon we were scrambling along the crest of a sort of ridge formation, which eventually led us over to more snow and a leftwards traverse to the start of more easy scrambling up some sort of small gully. Above this was a broad and ill-defined rib, which was semi-marked by cairns, but in the dark was not easy to keep track of. The rock was a bit loose in places and several times we could hear stuff falling, though it was really difficult to pinpoint where the rock was coming down from since it was so dark. It made me feel a bit uneasy, so I was glad when we finally got onto more solid rock just before coming up to the Fruhstucksplatz (“Breakfast place”) at around 3900m just before 5.30am. It was hard to believe that we’d left the hut already 3 hours ago – it didn’t feel like it had been that long at all! Now there were some pretty stunning pinks and purples on the horizon too, so it was a good spot to take a short break before embarking on the next section of ridge, which was a bit more involved, narrow and exposed. This rocky section of the East ridge didn’t rise much in altitude, but it was fairly long with good rock and very pleasant easy climbing. The crest itself was fairly narrow in places so it was definitely a place to keep the concentration switched on. One step involved pulling up over an overhang which I thought was a bit strenuous, but otherwise that was probably the only challenging part of the ridge.
The sunrise was stunning, perhaps even more so than on the Lenzspitze since there were some clouds around which scattered the light quite dramatically. Shame there were a lack of random people behind us, there could have been some nice photos of them this morning ;) We could see the austrian Zermatt guide only a short distance ahead now and I sensed that Tim had gotten a taste for competition mode once it looked like we were going to catch them up so there wasn’t much hanging around here… Pretty soon the rock ridge was over though and we’d reached the start of the snow ridge and the upper snow slopes. The early morning light over the Zermatt valley and on the upper slopes of the nearby Schalihorn, Zinalrothorn, Matterhorn and Dent Blanche was really mesmerizing and a pleasure to watch. I felt like I’d been too engaged in the walking and climbing on the ridge that I’d not looked around much until now we’d stopped.
Anyway, after we’d finished putting on crampons and completing a quick photoshoot it was time to continue the plod up the snow ridge, passing the odd rock step here and there. The first half of the snow slope was in good condition with a decent and solid track zig zagging up it. For some reason I was also feeling like I had superpowers this morning and felt like I was in the best shape of the whole trip. It all seemed super easy and my legs didn’t seem to have felt any effect of the last week-and-a-half of activities (I changed my mind about this after the altitude forced me to stop for a quick breather though!). Not long after crossing the bergschrund though, the snow slopes became quite significantly icier and crevassed. Icy enough that Tim decided it would be best to put in a few ice screws and climb short pitches instead of continuing to go short roped. We kept close to the left hand edge of the snow where there were fewer holes, but it wasn’t exactly the most reassuring snow ever. By then we’d also overtaken the Zermatt guide so I guess it was a small consolation for the suboptimal conditions The pinnacle of Tim’s career apparently! After a good deal of front pointing the slopes eased off and all that remained was about 100m (maybe less?) of easy scrambling up to the summit where we were the first team to arrive at 8am. The summit views were pretty immense and it was like being in a mellow version of the Himalayas.. Lots of pointy, snow covered peaks in sight and in just about every direction! Still felt pretty crazy that it could be so warm at 4500m though.
Not too long after the Zermatt guide also turned up, though his guy was looking somewhat less cheerful than I was feeling. We took plenty of photos at the summit before dropping down a few metres and finding a nice little sun terrace to eat some snacks/drink/put suncream on. I guess it would have been nice to chill out there for a lot longer, but with a rather significant descent still to make both in distance and altitude it was always going to be best not to hang around too long. So at about 8.30am we started making our way back down to where we’d stashed our crampons and ice axe just before the final rock scramble and carefully descending the steep icy snow slopes. Having left ice screws and other anchors in place from the ascent it saved a bit of time not having to replace anchors for the descent; some parts I downclimbed whilst being belayed, other parts were just about “walkable” with a bit of solid cramponing. Scarpa Rebel Lites are not the most ideal boots for this kind of snow as I’d concluded after the Dent d’Herens but since I guess you make the best out of what you have – and these boots were definitely better for the majority of the route which was on rock. Little by little we progressed back down to where there had earlier been a good and solid track in the snow, though it was now transformed to a consistency that was much less solid in the relatively short time since ascending it. I’ll never fail to be fascinated by just how quickly the sun can transform the snow, even at these latitudes.
Finally we got off the snow and back onto the rock ridge though, where we took another break to pack away ice axe and crampons before continuing to navigate along the seemingly endless maze of spikes and blocks, sometimes walking right across the crest of the ridge, sometimes downclimbing one side of it or traversing around the other. I realized I was also mentally a bit more tired than I’d been on the ascent here, so I made a point of being extra vigilant on this more exposed part of the route. There were constant rockfalls in the east face of the mountain which were pretty concerning, though we didn’t notice any on the way down between the Fruhstucksplatz and the snow below where we had to descend. This was probably my least favourite part of the whole route, not just because it was a bit loose but also because we were off the well-defined and interesting part of the ridge now and it wasn’t the most obvious line down the mountain.
The rest of the descent went by a bit quicker, following the easy scrambly ridge below the snowfield and then cutting back out into the snow further down to give ourselves a quicker and easier descent. The “adventure trail” followed soon after, taking us back down to the short section with fixed rope before we followed the almost-flat trail back across the snow and scree all the way to the hut. In total the descent had taken about 4 hours, though it felt like it had taken an eternity at times… After about ½ hour at the hut drinking an amazing bottle of coke and packing up all our stuff again, we said goodbye to the hut guardians and the Zermatt guide and his guy who’d arrived back not long after us. It didn’t look like the Scottish guy was too enthusiastic to move for a while, but I personally wanted to keep going until we were properly down in the valley and could really relax. It took about 2.5 hours to walk back down to Randa and I can honestly say that even though I was feeling physically not too tired, my knees were definitely starting to feel a bit sore after the 3200m of descent! Possibly the first time ever I’ve done so much descent in one day - good thing we’d brought trainers to walk down in, otherwise the knees might have given up on me before getting back to Randa. Fortunately we were saved from the intense valley heat as some afternoon rain clouds moved in and gave us a light and refreshing shower to finish off what had been a very varied and incredibly satisfying day. I think if I had to be honest the best climbing of this trip had been on the Lenzspitze-Nadelhorn traverse, but the Weisshorn was more demanding both in terms of concentration and the sheer scale of the route but also a bit more rewarding to have reached the summit :) A big thanks to Tim for all the awesome climbs we’d managed to do in the last 8 days and for going back up (and down) the Weisshorn for his 5th time. Looking forward to next year’s summer holiday already….! :)
| Start date | 25.07.2019 02:28 (UTC+01:00 DST) |
| End date | 25.07.2019 12:22 (UTC+01:00 DST) |
| Total Time | 9h 54min |
| Moving Time | 5h 43min |
| Stopped Time | 4h 10min |
| Overall Average | 0.8km/h |
| Moving Average | 1.4km/h |
| Distance | 8.2km |
| Vertical meters | 1,570m |
User comments
Imponerende!!
Written by Gunski 24.08.2019 08:01Dette må ha vært litt av tur. Turrapporten din står til terningskast 6 :-). Lurer på hvilket kamera du bruker? Det er noen fantastiske flotte bilder.
Re: Imponerende!!
Written by hmsv1 24.08.2019 09:46Takk, ja det var en tur jeg kommer til å huske lenge :) jeg har brukt et Panasonic lumix LX7 i flere år og er veldig fornøyd med den. Synes det hjelper når man får de fine lysforholdene vi hadde også!
Weisshorn
Written by Terje61 27.07.2019 09:19Gratulerer med bestigningen, denne står høyt på listen. Mektig fjell og sikkert en fin tur! Spennende å høre fra Lenspitze også, ett område jeg ikke har vært (Lenspitze - Nadelgrat)
Re: Weisshorn
Written by hmsv1 27.07.2019 09:30Takk :) Weisshorn var på lista mi i flere år, så det var godt å ha fått det til! Turrapporten kommer etter hvert...
Det var selvsagt en flott tur, men overraskende mye løs stein før man kommer opp til selve østryggen, så jeg var litt skuffet over det. Kanskje forholdene varierer fra år til år, det har jo vært ganske varmt her den siste måneden!