Weisshorn 4506meters. A dream fullfilled.

It took a long time.  It was now four years since David Brooksbank emailed me asking me whether he could climb the Weisshorn after a 40 year hiatus.  David climbed the Matterhorn with Ulrich Inderbinen in 1975.  Ulrich was born in 1900.  He worked as a Guide until he was 96. Ulrich is quite an act to follow.  The Weisshorn is sometimes referred to as the "thinking mans" Matterhorn. In many ways it is just as spectacular and a lot harder- a rather more sophisticated climbing goal than its rather Chavy neigbour.  I have even heard the Matterhorn described as a sort of pimped up Ford Escort to a Ferrari but maybe that's a bit of extreme.

I agreed to try to climb the mountain with David and it was clear from the very first steps he would be more than capable.  The trouble was always the weather.  On our first year together it snowed and we went nowhere near the Weisshorn but instead climbed a lot of mixed of alpine routes all over the alps.  The next year it snowed again and we just left and headed for the Dolomites where we had some fantastic climbing.  Last year we did actually get as far as the Weisshorn Hut to find ourselves to be the sole occupants.  This was because it snowed again obliterating our attempt which ended in knee deep snow.

So to 2019.  We were to try again.  Our strategy was to climb a preparatory route that was not only "interesting" but would  provide valuable acclimatisation.  We would then have an easier day so that we did not get too tired before the ascent.  In essence 3 days warm up and 3 days for the ascent and descent of the Weisshorn.  After all, the vertical ascent of the Weisshorn is greater than from Everest base camp to its summit.

We climbed the Arete de Saille on the Grand Muveran.

The arete.

 We stayed in the Cabane de Rambert.  We both agreed that if you wanted the perfect quintessential hut experience then this was it.  A quiet hut with just a few people , a good food and then a spectacular climb with no one else on it.

Crux Pitch.

On our third day we ventured into the Vallee Blanche in order to maintain the acclimatisation and to make sure all the ice related kit was working.  We climbed Point Lachenal.

The plan was going fine, then the weather played its part again.  We were forced to re book our night in the Weisshorn Hut and delay a day.  We went rock climbing above Brevent- that was  hardly a sob story.

The next day we drove around to Randa and made the long walk up to the Weisshorn Hut.  Meanwhile the weather forecast had changed again.  Our proposed summit day, the next day, was now showing a poor forecast. The other teams bailed. We found ourselves [once again] the only occupants of the Hut.  After a "Council of War"  David and I decided to sit it out at the Hut because the next few days promised stellar weather.  This had pro's and cons.  The main pro was that we would gain valuable acclimatisation and rest .  The cons were that David would have to change his flights and I would be climbing the Weisshorn on my 25th wedding anniversary. Dinner needed to be cancelled.

Our enforced rest day involved sitting around in the fog and the drizzle.  Then the water supply dried up.  Then the beer supply dried up.  The beer supply was bravely sorted by the arrival of a helicopter slaloming through a break in the clouds.

Fixing the Hut water supply was arguably marginally more important than the beer supply as no water would mean no food.  The way to fix the water supply was to hike up to the glacier and re plum the pipe into the glacier.  This is how I spent my afternoon.  I walked up the path behind the hut armed with a long wooden ice axe, not really knowing what to expect.  I followed the pipe to its end where I found it sticking up in the air.  It was an easy fix to dig a hole in the glacier and reposition the pipe so that the glacier stream could flow in to the end of the pipe.

I was not sure how successful this had been until I arrived back at the hut, but I guessed by the hugs and kisses I received from Jacqueline the Hut Guardian I'd fixed it.

There were a couple more moral boosting teams who arrived in the afternoon.  A local Swiss Guide and his client , plus a Polish Guide and a Ukrainian Aspirant Guide, the later was apparently being assessed for his Guides badge by the former.  How this was going to work was beyond me, because neither of them could speak each others language and the only mutual language they had was English, of which neither of them [as far as I ascertained] could speak that very well either.
Anyway three parties in total.

The alarm went off at 2.00am.  We were away just before 3.00am.  All the stars were out.  Not a breath of wind.  Was this to be our day?  Progress was smooth, steady and incident free.  We made it to the "Breakfast stop"  a place on the climb where we join the the true east ridge.

 The rock on the ridge now becomes solid and the climbing straightforward but  airy.  Firstly over the Lochmatter Tower and then over and around several other towers, before the rock ridge turns to a snow ridge.  Or in our case an icy snowy  ridge.

 The other parties elected to pitch climb the icy sections.  We choose to climb moving together.  We were able to do this because in the four years we had been climbing together I knew David would be just fine.  Inevitably by not pitching the climb we arrived on the summit first followed very closely by the Polish/Ukrainian team.

Summit with the Matterhorn in the background

There was now the issue of getting back down.  Maximum concentration is needed at every step.  The icy ridge was a bit softer on the way back which helped the crampons bite well.  But every step potentially could be your last.  The rocky ridge went well and I lowered David down off the towers then rappelled my self.  The big pain was the ground below the Breakfast Stop.  In the dark we had not appreciated what a pile of rubble it was.  And a constantly moving pile.  It was difficult to find the best path because there were so many false trails, it was uncomfortably hot and we were tired.  Eventually after stopping for a swim in a glacier pool we arrived back at the Hut after about 15 hours.  Too tired to contemplate the walk back to the valley we elected to stay the night.  My status as the Huts favorite Guide was still intact and we were treated to beer and an extra special private bedroom.
After a leisurely breakfast, good bye hugs from Jacqueline we departed for the valley.  We had finally made it.

Jacqueline waives us goodbye.

An eclectic mix of alpine climbing.

South Face of the Dibona

 I was about to be joined by John Young for ten days climbing just as the local, Mt Blanc massif weather forecast had gone  awry. A familiar story.   It was, however. considerably better down in the Parc Nationale des Ecrins.  I suggested to John that we head down there and "warm up" by climbing the south face of the Dibona.  John is fundamentally up for any new mountain  adventure and  just said "lets do it " so off we went.

Yet I had last climbed the Dibona exactly ten years ago and the trouble was I had forgotten that I had forgotten three key parts of my original trip. 

We drove from Chamonix leaving in the rain. After a four hour drive we ended up  near the end of the remote Berarde valley where we  parked the car and set off up the path.  The first key thing I had forgotten was how fierce the walk to the Sollier Hut is.  A very steep unrelenting 1000 meters plus walk.

The Hut was busy but not too busy.  Some work had been done on the infrastructure since I was last here  and it was good to be able  to take a [albeit cold] shower.

We were keen to grab an early start the next morning  because our route, the Madier Climb, is the classic of the Dibona and we didn't want to be all tangled up with other groups. The Hut is a ten minute walk from the start of the climb .  If you fell off the climb you would probably land on the roof. We were climbing by about 7.30hrs.  Soon passing through the famous tunnel pitch.

John popping out of the tunnel pitch

 It was several pitches later that I remembered that the climb is a lot longer and considerably more difficult  than my memory recalled.  Still we climbed on, always on fabulous rock and in sensational situations.

Finally the summit , as the photos suggest it's  compact.  We weren't alone as all the climbs on the Dibona naturally converge on its top.  Quite an eclectic set of climbers from every part of Europe.

 A couple of short rappels from the summit followed by some simple but exposed scrambling lead us to the path which took us pack to the hut.  The third thing I had failed to remember is the descent from the hut back to the car is harder work than the ascent.  Ultimately a twelve hour leg shredding day.  "Some warm up climb" John said.

What to do next ?  Well we were down in the Ecrins with a good forecast and it seemed that we should make the most of it.  In particular John had never climbed the Barres des Ecrins.  [One of the 4000 meter peaks  missing from his impressive portfolio.]

Me with the Barres des Ecrins in the background.

We secured a reservation in the Barres des Ecrins Refuge [Hut], which was easier than I had anticipated because the flip side to the ease of reservation   was that not many people were climbing the the Barres des Ecrins because it was intimidatingly  icy and a lot more serious an undertaking than normal- [whatever normal now means in the world of global warming].
We left the road-head at at 10.30hrs and followed a path which was ludicrously busy but after two hours we  troughed down  a welcome omelette at the Glacier Blanc Refuge. After which we continued plodding on to the Ecrins Refuge.  The whole approach walk taking about 4 and half hours.

In this part of the world it is a bit of a tradition for the Hut Guardian to address his  guests with an "After Dinner Speech" -a bit of a conditions report and the weather forecast,freezing temperatures etc etc.
It is also the tradition  for the Guardian to actually wake people up at their designated breakfast time. Ours was at 3.00am. There were only about 8 of us for the early breakfast.

We were a way by 3.45hrs.  Firstly it's all about re-descending about 200vertical meters back down to the glacier. [Global warming] before plodding up the glacier  for an hour or so, where the ground rises up sharply and the difficulties commence.  Suddenly we knew exactly why there were so few people attempting the peak.  It was steep , there was no track, we were surrounded by huge crevasses and it was still dark.  We were forced to front-point up some boiler plate hard ice which was distinctly sketchy, while at the same time thinking it its like this all the way , then , we're going to struggle and that is without the no small matter of returning .
We carried on and to our relief the terrain mellowed out and we followed a good track until we arrived just before the Dome des Ecrins.  This proved to be another tricky obstacle because all the snow had melted into ice.  We had to pitch the final part placing ice screws for protection.  We were able to do this in a controlled and considered manner , yet nevertheless it was far harder than what most people would sign up to.

Once we were on the Dome we had to make our way on to the ridge of the Barres des Ecrins. This part of the climb benefited from the dry conditions and the climb to the summit was magnificent. Alpine climbing at its best. We moved  quickly along the rocky exposed ridge and were on the summit for 9.00hrs.

The summit of Les Barres des Ecrins

  To the north we could see Mt Blanc . To the south Monte Viso. We took  some photos, then  something to eat and then it was back down again.   The rocky ridge went well .  We were able to circumnavigate the icy ascent of the Dome des Ecrins by a rappel.

The rapel avoiding the icy slope of ascent in the background

 A group of four french climbers very kindly let us jump on their ropes.  We made the descent with some  trepidation while pondering how we were best going to negotiate the treacherous icy section. As it happened the snow had warmed up the track and we found our crampons bit in to the ice well.  We were able to weave our way down through the crevasses, the  intimidating snow bridges and steep slopes with no problems.  Then it was just a case of knuckling down to walk the 2000 meter vertical descent back to the car.   We did stop to trough a couple more  omelettes on the way down which were fairly essential fuel. Still another 12 hour plus day.

Pointing towards Mt Blanc

 Big crevasses spanned by small snow bridges.

We traveled back to Chamonix.   We decided to take a rest.  This also coincided with some bad weather which allowed us to rest without feeling overly guilty.  

We reconvened three days later.  It seemed sensible to change the emphasis from massive mountain days and explore some of the multi- pitch rock climbing .  Firstly we needed to find somewhere that was dry after the apocalyptic rain of the previous days.
We chose to start on the Pantagreul on the Trappistes crag which is near to Sembrancher on the road bewteen Verbier and Martigny.

Penultimate pitch on the fabulous Pantagreul 6a

The next day we headed up the Berard Vallee to climb the modern classic L'Ete Indian.  A stiff hour and halfs walk brings you to the foot of a seven pitch masterpiece all in beautiful remote surroundings.

On our final day we decided to head over to the Col de La Colombiere famous among Tour de France fans as its on the Tour most years.  There is also a huge amount of easily accessible rock climbing.  We chose to climb the route Le Lord Anglais on the pic de Jallouvre. 

Col de la Colombiere

It seemed like a strange name for a climb. May be the last pitch was a clue :  It was much harder than advertised and effectively "sand bagged" us, not unlike the present privileged classes and the Aristocracy is doing to everyone over BREXIT ?

Still a very fine climb to sign off on.



 

I call him the "Alpine Metronome." The climber with the perfect alpine pace.

Peter Little approaching the summit of the Pigne de la Lé

Nearly thirty years of climbing together in Wales, Scotland the Lakes, the Peak District and of course the Alps, Peter Little has pretty much climbed all the seminal peaks as well as many of the iconic alpine traverses. His CV of big mountain routes and mix of alpine rock climbs  would be the envy of many aspiring mountaineers.

Nowadays there is more  a sense  just getting into  remote beautiful areas  off the Alps.  Esthetics are everything.  Just being  off the beaten track and soaking it all up.

On our first day together we headed up the Montenvers Railway and rock climbed on the spectacular slabs above what us to be the Mer de Glacé.

Montenvers Slabs

One of the key challenges climbing with Peter is too find somewhere he hasn’t been before.  Such a place did exist- La Cabane de Moiry. It is an area that offers lots of potential on snow covered peaks without the associated grief of flogging up a bigger objective. Mind you there is so much snow still lingering that what we did climb was hard work putting the track in.

On our  second morning we drove from  Chamonix over to Martigny in Switzerland  where we decided to break the journey by climbing the first section of the Farinet Via Ferrata which is situated near the thermal baths at Saillon. The route is conveniently  divided into three sections with opt-out exits as the way gets progressively  more difficult and challenging. So much so there is a sign on the final section with a revolving number that can be set to the current amount of rescues for the given season. We decided not to see if we could add to the total.

Via Ferratta

All was fine as we followed the beautiful gorge with its impressive pulsating  waterfall beside us.  The issue was that after we found the exit, the path back to the car was not obvious, well not obvious to Peter and I.  We managed to get lost in the "Vignettes."  This is a wine growing area of Switzerland which supports some of its finest wines , being caught thrashing through the plants would have meant facing the  "firing- squad."

The great escape.

Safely skulking  back at the car without being caught, we then continued up to the road-head at the end of the Lac Moiry which is at the grand height of 2300m.  From there the walk to the Cabane is about an hour and a half, mind you there was still a lot of snow on the paths which made certain bits slower as sometimes we sank up to our waists in deep mushy snow.

The Moiry refuge is  civilized :  Afternoon Tea is served , then you can take a shower before a very competent dinner.

The next day we climbed the Dent Rosse.  We followed two of my colleagues Terry Ralph and Mark Charlton's groups.  They were doing a very fine job of breaking trail.  Or Mark and Terry had set up there clients to do so - telling them that it is an essential part of their Alpine apprenticeship.  [Which of course it is] Nevertheless we were grateful and when we even offered to have a go out front they insisted on going first.  Frankly there was so much deep snow that we would not have been able to progress with out them.

Dent de Rosse

 On our fourth day together Peter and I climbed the Aiguille de la Lé by its west ridge.  PD.  This is an excellent route which is relatively short but puts you on top of a mountain with fabulous views of many of the Valais grandest peaks like the Weisshorn, Bishorn, Dent Blanche , Zinalrotehorn and of course the Matterhorn [which Peter reminded me we had climbed well over 20 years ago.]

Summit view from Pigne de Lé looking towards the Dent Blanche with the Matterhorn to its left.

The generous snow cover meant that the descent back towards the cabane was quick and we were back in just over an hour from the summit.  We collected our extra stuff and headed down the path back to the car, just as it started to rain heavily.

On our final day the weather was indifferent and we contented ourselves with some valley based rock climbing before Peter's taxi collected him for his trip back to Geneva airport.

Mt Blanc. The first ascent of the year on foot was hard earned.

Jody Laoureux crossing the Gouter Couloir

Global warming has been messing with the traditional climbing seasons for a while. For example attempting to climb Mt Blanc in the height of the summer has become just too dangerous because the snow which acts like glue and keeps all the rocks in place has gone.
Partly due to this the Gouter Refuge has opened earlier in the season in order to take advantage of better snow cover and therefore safer conditions.
With this in mind I set up an attempt in late May [the day after the Gouter Refuge opened for business] with Gareth Preece and his pal Stewart Beardwell.

Not for the first time the prevailing weather didn't seem to want to play ball with our plans.  The weather forecast for the week was appalling and it snowed hard. 

We met on May 23rd and headed up to the Mer de Glace for some crampon training and to make sure  the kit actually worked properly.  The weather was beautiful.

24th May. We headed up to the Torino Refuge with the main plan being to gain as much acclimatisation as we could.  The other part of the plan was to climb a couple of mountains. 

Our first climb was the traverse of the Aiguille du Marbree which was in perfect condition, covered with just enough snow to glue all the rocks in place , but not too much snow to make it too difficult.

southern endof Aiguille du Marbree

The Torino hut is huge with many many places.  The night we were there they had five customers.  The three of us and another British Guide Dave Gladwin and his client Andy.  They were on the same schedule as us , the plan being to head over to Mt Blanc after some acclimatisation.

25th May .  We eat breakfast at about 5.00hrs and were away to climb the Tour Ronde at about 6.00hrs.  There was no one about .  This might have had something to do with the fact that the weather was rubbish.  Although not too rubbish for us to climb the peak and get back down in very good time for plenty of rest and eating.

Summit of Tour Ronde.

Bye now the weather forecast had improved considerably and we had identified a window of good weather coming up.

On the morning of the 26thMay I picked Gareth and Stuart up from their Air B&B apartment at 5.30hrs.  It was from this point that the trip turned into a true unpredictable , adventure with many twist and turns.
At this stage in the summer season none of the cable cars, train infrastructure are open.  There are fundamentally two choices 1, Start walking from the valley floor .2 Use a 4 wheel drive to drive to the top of the cable car at Bellevue.  We took the  Land Rover Defender which is arguably THE seminal off road vehicle.

Bionassay valley from where we set off.

We started walking at 6.30hrs.  But not before checking our avalanche transceivers were switched on.*
The goal was to get to the Gouter Refuge, [where after a lot of tedious internet work we had secured our reservation.] I reckoned we had a big day in front of us of between eight and nine hours.  We had not been walking long before we met our first snow.  My boot went into it up to the knee. Then the next step was the same followed by the next and so it went on.  We eventually arrived at the Nid Aigle railway terminus [ buried in snow ] after 3 hours, slow but not catastrophically so.  In addition because we had set off early we still had time on our side.  Yet the problem was the scene which confronted us .  There were no track to be seen anywhere and each attempt at a step ended up with me sinking in to my waist.
I turned to Gareth and Stewart and said :
 "there is no way I can do this."

It was looking like our Mt Blanc attempt was about to end.  The guys were reasonably philosophical and reasoned that they had already climbed two of their first alpine peaks.  If this was to be as far as they got then so be it.  We sat on a rock and pondered what to do .  I made some calls to see if I could get a better overall picture of the conditions.  While we were sitting down , we spotted two people slowly making their way up behind us.  We waited about forty minutes for them to catch us up.  It turned out to be a Chamonix Guide and his already completely knackered client.  I asked him what he thought about conditions and what his aim for the day was .  He seemed totally undaunted by the fact there was no track and just headed on ploughing the track through waist deep snow.  We just looked on open mouthed and  incredulous .  We watched him for a further twenty minutes believing he must either turn around of die of exhaustion.  He did neither and so we thought  we might as well follow him and see what happens.  He kept on going and even though his client only had to merely follow, the client could barely keep up.  The Guide ploughed on for a couple of hours .  Eventually he stopped for a rest .  We caught him up and I took over the trail breaking.  It was now unpleasantly hot and we had run out of water.  Then our luck slightly improved , we were caught up by another Guide who told us that the Tete Rousse hut might be open, we could at least refill our water bottles , plus there was another Guide Jody to help break trail.  After 9 hours from leaving Bellevue we were at the Tete Rousse Refuge, but not the Gouter as planned.  To give the situation some context it normally takes 3 to 4 hours from Bellevue to the Tete Rousse.  One to two hours from Nid Aigle.

So although the Tete Rousse refuge was not officially open for the season we were allowed to stay .  I phoned the Gouter Refuge and put our booking back a night.  The fact that no one had made it to the Gouter should have told me something .

Spot the issue :Dog watches as snow is harvested for drinking water.

Dave and his client turned up a couple of hours after us relatively fresh from following our track.  The same could not be said for Super Guide.  Although he was fine his client was "totaled"  They decided to try and get back down the same day.  This left eight of us in the Refuge.  Then a lone guy from Mumbai called the Refuge for help saying he was exhausted and lost.  Dave and Jody went down the hill to drag back up into the Refuge.  The man was a complete accident waiting to happen, all the gear and no idea , plus a miss placed sense of his own mortality, who was incapable of listening to advice. But over dinner he was very generous with his advice as to where we were all going wrong. We thought we were slow but it had taken him two days to get to the Refuge.

27th May. We were up at 3.00hrs and away by 4.00hrs.  There was a vague track to follow , but we still sunk through it.  The Gouter Couloir was in safe condition and we were able to cross it and climb its right side .  After about an hour and a half we stopped to let the other teams take their turn at making the  track.  It was all very good , beautiful surroundings, virtually no one around.  After three hours we arrived at the Gouter Refuge.  We dumped all our superfluous stuff [like helmets] and headed out of the door and back onto the route.
There was no track above us .  The very first step I took I sank up to my thigh.  Then next step was the same , as were the next few thousand.  I once again said to Gareth and Stewart
 "I didn't think this was on."
 They both then  had ago in front and it was fairly instantaneously that they agreed.  Eventually Jody turned up and he and his group were already looking tired.  We decided that we could try and work together, hoping that conditions under foot might get better.  Jody set off and we followed.  Dave and Andy eventually caught us up and Dave had ago in front.  The snow had not improved Dave was now crawling up hill on all fours. We eventually made it to the shoulder of the Dome du Gouter.  We decided we could try and get to the Vallot.  This next section was down hill , but the snow under foot was even worse .  The sort of snow that supports your weight for about two seconds before collapsing sending you into the snow up to the groin.
We struggled on to the Vallot.  The weather was good . There was little wind and the track was now reasonable because a lot of people had arrived on skis from the Les Grands Mulets route.  Having left their skis they had climbed the final part of the ridge on foot.  All was looking a lot better, except everyone was seriously tired .  Stewart was doubting whether he could go on.  Andy couldn't go on and threw in the towel.

Almost there - but running on empty and digging deep

A bit of a motivational speech persuaded Stewart to to continue.  Jody and his two clients also continued with us .  Progress was slow but we kept going. Then we had a go at the remarkable "get out of jail" breathing technique .  We zoomed ahead of the other group  and at  14.45hrs we summitted.  We were alone.   Views and conditions were perfect.  Against considerable odds we had made it.

Stuart Beardwell and Gareth Preece on the summit of Mt Blanc

Jody Laoureux summits Mt Blanc.

28th May It was all very well climbing to the roof of Europe , but that left the not inconsiderable task of getting back down.  At first this went very well, and we arrived back at the Vallot emergency shelter in good time.

Le Vallot Shelter

Yet after that we entered a kind of hell because although we were retracing our track, it would still not support our weight and with each step we sank in up to the knee.  We eventually arrived back at the Gouter just in time for dinner at 18.30hrs.  Dinner was the most perfect calorie packed meal you could wish for in such circumstances . Tartiflette.
May 28th. Breakfast was at 7.00hrs.  We were a way by 8.00hrs.  It had snowed a lot over night . Our tracks of the previous day had been obliterated .  The descent below the Gouter was exciting .

Who said Mt Blanc was just a walk?

After a lull in the weather it was now snowing hard again.  We crossed the Gouter Couloir and once again had to break trail back to the Tete Rousse Refuge.  We stopped for some very welcome soup before"bum sliding" the snow slope below the refuge.  The snow turned to rain as we slogged our way back to the Nid Aigle railway terminus.

Fairly uninspiring conditions

The railway. No trains any time soon.

Normally this marks the end of the journey for most people who have climbed Mt Blanc.  But with the railway track being chocked with snow and the two tunnels blocked our climb was no where near over.  We still had to burrow our way out of the end of the tunnel and descend a treacherous slope which was above a void.

Escaping through the tunnel. Gareth still has a smile on his face.

All in all the descent took from the Gouter back to the Land Rover took nearly nine hours.

Mont Blanc anyone?




* Best practice is to wear an avalanche transceiver when there is a lot of snow around, no matter what time of year .  See blog Thinking of climbing Mt Blanc this summer? Guided Ascents of Mt Blanc: What they Don't tell you.You need to know this.