Aiguille d'Orny

Datum:

13.08.2017

Tourcharakter:

Klettern

Tourlänge:

6:00h

© Hannah Vickers After a partly wet Friday which we used to do yet another via ferrata at Saillon (named Via Farinetta, TD+), Saturday finally brought good weather and it appeared that the weather would remain good until at least Tuesday or Wednesday. However the constant downpours of rain at valley-level had also produced massive dumps of new snow from around 3000m, so even though the good weather was back, the high mountain ridges weren’t necessarily in condition. Fortunately we didn’t have any solid objectives for these 2 weeks so we were essentially free to make plans according to weather and conditions. Aiguille d’Orny became the new objective for Sunday so we did a few single pitch 5a/5b climbs at Dorenaz early on Saturday morning before driving up to Champex-Lac to get the Breya chairlift at 2188m >>>

Grand Perron traverse

Datum:

09.08.2017

Tourcharakter:

Klettern

Tourlänge:

6:45h

© Hannah Vickers After a day of rain and only having done a quick and easy via ferrata at Nax on Tuesday, the weather forecast for Wednesday looked more promising with the last of the rain and fog supposed to clear in the morning. There was even a chance of seeing sunshine later in the day! However, since bad weather was forecasted again on both Thursday and Friday it seemed like the best option would be to do a day trip. We also made a plan to switch our rest day from Saturday to Thursday so we could make the most of the good weather which was forecasted to be coming at the start of the weekend. With this in mind Sami suggested either doing some rock climbing in the valley or the Grand Perron traverse. Both Linda and I agreed that a high level ridge traverse would be a far more interesting option than valley >>>

Lagginhorn South Ridge

Datum:

07.08.2017

Tourcharakter:

Hochtour

Tourlänge:

7:30h

© Hannah Vickers First route of a two-week trip with Linda who I’d met up with a few days earlier and our Finnish guide Sami who was working for Frost Guiding based in Evolene. The weather forecast wasn’t all that promising for the majority of the week but Monday was supposed to be fairly good with sunny weather. After some discussions about what we’d already done and what sort of routes we wanted to do, we decided to start with the south ridge of the Lagginhorn, a long AD ridge route which was now in good, dry condition after several days of warm and sunny weather. It seemed like a good objective since Linda had done a lot of fairly hard rock climbing in the US but never done any short-roping before on easier grade routes in the Alps. We planned to drive over to Saas Grund on Sunday morning and take >>>

Pointe du Bandon

Datum:

03.08.2017

Tourcharakter:

Bergtour

© Hannah Vickers Akklimatiseringstur i lag med Linda. Vi tok første buss fra Evolene til Les Hauderes da en tidlig start fristet mtp at det var meldt varmt vær i dag. Byttet buss i Les Hauderes for å komme oss videre til La Sage. Fulgte stien i retning Col du Tsaté før jeg etter hvert gikk opp på den sørlige ryggen på Pointe du Bandon og Linda fortsatte mot Moiryhytta. God sti opp til ryggen, men derfra ble det kun gress og løs stein. Mye løs stein faktisk. Fortoppen var også noe løs og jeg var i tvil på om jeg hadde lyst til å hoppe over et hakk under den lille toppen for å kunne fortsette mot det høyeste punkt på Pointe du Bandon som var kun 10m høyere. Så jeg avsluttet turen på fortoppen og ble trøstet med en OK utsikt mot Glacier de Moiry og de mange flotte toppene rundt breen. Gikk >>>

Petite Dent de Veisivi traverse

Datum:

23.08.2016

Tourcharakter:

Hochtour

Tourlänge:

6:45h

© Hannah Vickers Siste dag på ferie og nok en solskinnsdag uten en eneste sky. Hadde ønsket å sove lenge etter gårsdagens tidlig start, men dette klarte jeg ikke så jeg var ganske trøtt igjen da jeg våknet. Vi hadde snakket med Graham om ulike planer for dagen, en av dem var klatring på Miroir d'Argentine, klatring på Sanetsch eller en ryggtravers over Petite Dent de Veisivi. Richard hadde takket nei til en siste klatredag så det var egentlig opp til meg for å ta en beslutning. Kunne vært fristende å ha en skikkelig klatredag med mindre innmarsj enn på fjelltur, men til slutt var det ryggtraversen som vant. Med en innmarsj på ca.1300hm kun til starten av traversen var det noe tungt etter å ha vært på Dent Blanche dagen før, men jeg regnet med at vi ikke skulle gå så veldg fort og det burde >>>

Dent Blanche

Datum:

22.08.2016

Tourcharakter:

Hochtour

Tourlänge:

8:00h

© Hannah Vickers The Dent Blanche is a fantastic mountain and with its four ridges it is like a perfect pyramidal peak which ought to be next to Ama Dablam in the Himalayas. Interestingly it was also wrongly named on the maps back in the 1800s (I think?) and should have been named the Dent d’Herens since it lies in the Val d’Herens, and the current Dent d’Herens should have been named the Dent Blanche since it is more snow-covered and whiter…. Having now been somewhat fascinated by the sight of the mountain from just about every peak I’d been on since the start of the holiday, I was now pretty excited about the opportunity to actually climb it. I was paired up with another guy Richard for the final three days and he was also keen to do an ascent of the Dent Blanche and was already well acclimatized >>>

Aiguille de la Tsa via vestryggen på Dent de Tsalion

Datum:

19.08.2016

Tourlänge:

11:00h

© Hannah Vickers Final climb of the week with Andy and Tom. We’d talked over various alternatives, the south ridge of the Lagginhorn being one of them – or the west ridge of the Dent de Tsalion combined with an ascent of the Aiguille de la Tsa, a beautiful rock spire which more or less dominates the skyline above Arolla. I think I’d actually noticed the peak on the way up to Col des Ignes the previous week, but hadn’t actually realised it was the Tsa. Anyway, we ended up choosing the latter since it was close by to Evolene. We had a rather laid-back start to the thursday and started the walk up to Cabane de la Tsa from Arolla at around midday. It was pretty sunny and warm when we started but the forecasted rain came quite soon after when we had got about halfway up to the hut. Fortunately it was only >>>

Couronne de Bréona traverse

Datum:

16.08.2016

Dent des Rosses traverse

Datum:

15.08.2016

Col des Ignes + litt til

Datum:

12.08.2016

Tourcharakter:

Bergtour

Tourlänge:

5:00h

© Hannah Vickers Hadde opprinnelig tenkt å prøve en tur opp La Cassorte sin 3301 topp, evt. 3314 også men fant lite informasjon på nett om hvordan det er å gå opp på sommerstid så jeg tok Col des Ignes som hovedmål og tenkte å sjekke ut ruten videre til La Cassorte som en bonustur. Tok bussen fra Evolene til Arolla (19,20 SFr tur/retur) og gikk opp veien til der jeg fant skilting for Cabane des Aiguilles Rouges. Var litt skyet da jeg begynte turen så det var en meget behagelig temperatur å gå i. Fin utsikt mot Mont Collon og L'Eveque på vei opp også! Etter ca.1t 15m krysset jeg ei bru og kanskje 10minutter senere hadde jeg kommet frem til stien som går mot Cabane des Dix. Denne stien får blå/hvit merking og går stort sett på en morenerygg opp mot Col des Ignes - ganske lettgått terreng >>>