Täschhorn (08.07.2022)
Written by hmsv1 (Hannah Vickers)
| Start point | Mischabeljoch bivouac hut (3,827m) |
|---|---|
| Endpoint | Täschalp (2,171m) |
| Characteristic | Alpine climbing |
| Duration | 9h 35min |
| Distance | 14.8km |
| Vertical meters | 620m |
| GPS |
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| Ascents | Alphubel (4,206m) | 07.07.2022 |
|---|---|---|
| Täschhorn (4,491m) | 08.07.2022 |
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 glacier, but ended up changing our minds and decided to make use of the Mittelallalin lift from Saas Fee, so it would be more of a snow plod/scramble approach, going part of the way up the normal route to the Allalinhorn before branching off and crossing Feechopf to make a south-north traverse of Alphubel. The north ridge of Alphubel conveniently finishes at the Mischabeljoch bivouac so it seemed like quite a nice hut “walk” to get us there. By the time we’d driven over to Saas Fee, parked the car and walked to the other side of town to buy lift tickets it was already about 9am, and then it took another 20 minutes (ish) to get up to the top station at around 3500m. So despite the 6am start from Evolene, it was a not-very-alpine start for an alpine sort of route.
A very well trodden track going all the way up the normal route to the Allalinhorn made the initial snow plod up to the Feejoch relatively easy going and a nice breeze kept us at a pretty comfortable temperature despite walking in late morning sun on a glacier. Nevertheless I still appreciated a quick break at the Feejoch where we de-cramponed before starting the scramble over the rocky southeast ridge on Feechopf. The rock wasn’t exactly first class quality and it felt like a bit more of an effort with a heavy rucksack on, but it was still more fun than plodding up more snow. There was more of that to come... From the top of the rock ridge we took a new short break to put crampons back on and eat a bit more lunch. A pair of climbers who’d appeared from behind us seemed to be moving pretty quickly and soon caught up with us and it turned out they were also heading for the Mischabeljoch bivouac hut via the same route. Anyway, we soon continued on our way toward Alphubel with a small descent over a bit of crevassed ground to the Alphubeljoch before re-ascending up the southeast ridge which looked to be well tracked. The last time I’d been up this route was 20 years ago but I don’t remember that there was any rock sections along the way, which there was this time, just as the ridge steepens into the final upper part. Having said that, the last time I was here we’d ascended the ridge after a heavy snowfall so maybe the rock had just been covered over in new snow. The final 100m or so to the summit of Alphubel were quite icy – not blank ice but just about OK to get away with cramponing up with a pair of ski poles in my hands. On reflection though it probably wouldn’t have been a bad idea to have an ice axe out.
By the time we approached the summit of Alphubel it had turned a bit foggy so there were zero views and the windy had picked up massively just as we’d emerged onto the summit plateau from the southeast ridge. It felt like the wind was coming from the NW, so we were facing right into it for much of the walk over the summit to reach the other side where the descent down the north ridge started from. At a guess I’m fairly sure the gusts were in excess of 20 m/s because it was extremely difficult to stay upright at times! Hadn’t quite expected it to be this windy today, so it came as a bit of a surprise. I think it was lucky that the terrain was basically flat snow here, as it would have been a bit exciting to be on anything more technical and exposed at that point. Fortunately as we descended quickly dow to the start of the rock on the north ridge the wind (and gusts) dropped quite a bit and we were a bit better protected from the wind as we descended mostly on the right (eastern) side of the ridge down to the Mischabeljoch. Although the hut was only a few hundred metres below us, the descent felt like it was taking an eternity. It was fairly easy PD-grade scrambling though, so there were no real difficulties along the way. Some slabby, featureless terrain close to the hut provided a bit more excitement and bum shuffling techniques were employed to deal with these parts! In total it was just over 5 hours from the Mittelallalin to the Mischabeljoch bivy hut. We were actually the last people of 10 to arrive – quite a few were taking an afternoon nap when we got there so we did our best to be as quiet as possible! The hut itself was much more modern and spacious than I was expecting for a bivouac hut, but I guess that’s typical Swiss standards. There were bunk bed spaces for 22 people and a decent sized dining room with a stove and wood supplies and great views looking westwards toward the Matterhorn. The toilet was not such an attractive place to visit though! Anyway, the rest of the afternoon was spent drinking tea and then making an earlyish dinner. Everyone in the hut was planning to only go up to the Täschhorn and a 3am breakfast seemed to be the popular option so we went along with that. Whether or not we’d also continue the rest of the traverse along to the Dom with the kind of winds that were currently raging around the hut was still not certain.....
Next morning when we woke up it seemed like the wind had reduced a bit, but there was still quite a lot of it. After a caffeineless breakfast (the stove took too long to heat up so no one bothered to boil water) we were the last of 4 teams to leave, which was a sort of relief for me as I felt like my legs were pretty heavy this morning and I was probably going to be moving super slow and didn’t really want the stress of holding up people behind me (coincidently all the 3 other pairs were super-fast to get up and down the Täschhorn, so I am even more glad I didn’t hold them up). The scrambling/climbing started immediately from the hut so there was no kind of warmup approach walk to the start of the route which I found a bit brutal since I really do struggle without a gentle start to the day! Anyway, the ridge was basically grade II/III climbing all the way along the 1km (ish) from the hut to the summit and there were small cairns along the ridge which helped to indicate whether we on the route or not. The wind was a bit of a problem at times, especially on exposed flatter sections where there was nothing to hold onto and I was pretty concerned about being blown off by the strong gusts that showed up unexpectedly! Most of the time was spent on the east side of the ridge when not on the crest, but since the wind had changed direction and was blowing from the northeast this morning it meant that we were basically in the wind all the time. I eventually had to put my mitts on (for the first time since arriving in the Alps two months earlier) as it got pretty cold to hold my ice axe for the sections where we were cramponing up some steep snow patches. Seemed a bit ironic that this was possibly the coldest day I’d had out in the Alps despite it being closest to midsummer than any other days. Sunrise was a very welcome sight though and it started to feel noticeably warmer quite quickly. After passing the short sections with snow there was a final tower/face where the narrow ridge broadens out and after a little bit of loose ground the route just goes more or less straight up on reasonable rock and mostly grade II kind of ground. It was around 3h 15 by the time we arrived at the summit, though it felt like it had been a lot longer on caffeine-starved legs ;-) There was a nice view along the ridge to the Dom, but we didn’t spend much time looking at it though because every time we got close to the summit close a massive gust of wind would come along and slam us back down onto the south side again. Continuing the traverse in these kind of conditions was not exactly an option so after some minutes having some snacks and taking a couple of photos we started the descent back down to the Mischabeljoch bivy hut again. At least there was no rush to get back down since it was still early and it wasn’t far away :-) I felt very tired on the descent back down the ridge. Three nights of poor sleep and then no coffee to start the day turned out to be a bad combination... there were times when I just wanted to sit on a rock and enjoy the view for a while, but it was really a better idea to just keep moving and try and get back to the hut to relax properly. Scrambling back down and looking out for the small cairns proved to be a fun objective in itself and I almost began to enjoy myself at one point. But then I quickly decided I wished the hut was closer and that there was an easier way to get to it!
After just over 2 hours from the summit we got back to the Mischabeljoch bivy hut, where we finally got some proper respite from the wind and to our joy found some newly boiled water (thanks to the last couple who left late) and made use of it to make some much needed coffee. Probably the best part of the morning! We spent nearly an hour drinking, eating and repacking – then made our way down the Weingartengletscher (why on earth its named the Wine Garden glacier is anyone’s guess, it definitely bore no resemblance to a wine garden) which was straightforward snow plodding to begin with and then ended up as a maze of crevasses we had to navigate our way across, somehow it turned out OK though. In no time at all we were back on a pile of rubble again as we made our way back down toward the path leading up to the moraine from Täschalp. Having now become a real expert at walking over rubble, this was clearly no big deal and I quite liked the challenge of choosing which rock to hop on, always wondering if it would move or not.... The remainder of the walk down to Täschalp was basically a steep moraine path followed by a hard stony track, which proved quite sore on the feet. The final half hour or so on the track felt like forever on my sore feet – it was very much a relief to arrive in Täsch and take off the boots temporarily. As there was no bus service to Täschalp we eventually found a cafe to sit down at, have a drink and also order a taxi to get back to the train station in Täsch. There wa actually no mobile phone reception at Täschalp but the lady at the cafe was helpful enough to call a taxi on our behalf :-) The remainder of the day was spent getting back around to the car park in Saas Fee via train and bus, then driving back to Evolene – I guess it had been a good trip even though we didn’t do the main objective, but it was just bad luck that we ended up trying to do the traverse on the windiest day of the whole week. But I would without a doubt still try and do the Dom this way around and use the same approach via Alphubel, even if it does mean re-doing the long snow plod from the Mittelallalin. As ever a big thanks goes to Graham for another summer of great adventures :-)
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