Weissmies

Datum:

25.06.2022

Tourcharakter:

Hochtour

Tourlänge:

8:49h

Entfernung:

14,0km

© Hannah Vickers I've been wanting to do a "proper" alpine route solo for a few years and the south ridge of the Weissmies seemed to be a friendly option for a first solo route. I'd done it a couple of years earlier when it was plastered in new snow, but after last weekend's heatwave most ridges were now dry and clear of snow so it appeared to be an ideal opportunity to do it again. I booked a night at the Almageller hut and half expected to be the only British person there, but I ended up meeting quite a few other British guys there and had a much more social afternoon than expected chatting with them in the dining room. Had breakfast at 4am the following morning and thought I would end up behind queues of other climbers on the approach to the Zwichbergenpass, but they were taking so long to get ready >>>

Lauteraarhorn

Datum:

17.06.2022

Tourcharakter:

Alpinklettern

Tourlänge:

18:00h

Entfernung:

30,0km

© Hannah Vickers The Lauteraarhorn has been sitting on my to-do list for the last few years, or basically ever since climbing the Schreckhorn but not continuing to do the traverse across to the Lauteraarhorn. Rather than going back from the Schreckhorn side, the other alternative was to approach it from the Grimsel Hospice to the east and ascend the Lauteraarhorn via its south face couloir and southeast ridge. However, with the length of the walk-in to this route being of the typical Oberland expedition type (i.e. LONG!) I’d sort of hoped that it might have ended up being an approach that I could do on skis. Of course the one year that I manage to get to the Alps with skis it turns out to be one of the driest winter/spring seasons ever, so there was basically too little snow to bother with a ski-in to the Aar bivouac >>>

Pointe du Tsaté

Datum:

06.06.2022

Breithorn

Datum:

04.06.2022

© Hannah Vickers Kjekt å flytte hjemmekontor til alpene i et par uker ;-)

Aletschhorn

Datum:

27.05.2022

Tourcharakter:

Alpinklettern

Tourlänge:

13:06h

Entfernung:

12,3km

© Hannah Vickers Until now I’d only really seen the north side of the Aletschhorn, which rises more than 1000m steeply up from the Grosser Aletschfirn below and connects to the Dreieckhorn to the east of it. Still, it gives the impression that it would be a really cool mountain to climb, and moreso since most of the routes up it involve some sort of long approach. Hard-won summits are the best type :-) After having irritated one of my hip flexors while skinning up to the Vignettes hut earlier in the week, and Rachel was still suffering from painful blisters in ski boots, we were both feeling like it would be a nice change to ditch the skis and climb something in alpine boots. Hence the original idea to do a ski ascent of Nordend got binned and the idea of climbing the Aletschhorn via its southwest rib was >>>

Col de l'Eveque

Datum:

23.05.2022

Mönch

Datum:

18.05.2022

Tourcharakter:

Alpinklettern

Tourlänge:

9:05h

Entfernung:

11,2km

© Hannah Vickers The day following our trip up the Gross Fiescherhorn was forecasted to be the sunniest day of the whole week, but we had already booked beds at the Mönchjoch hut so after a good dinner of risotto (with double helpings) and salad at the Konkordia hut we settled on a plan to skin up toward the hut and make an ascent of the Mönch via its southeast ridge on our way there the next day. The ski up to the start of the southeast ridge of the Mönch via the Jungfraufirn was expected to take some 4-5 hours, so it would be a long approach compared to the more popular way of climbing the Mönch - which usually involves taking the train up to the Jungfraujoch from Grindelwald and then spending the night at the Mönchjoch hut (a 45 minute walk from the Jungfraujoch) and doing it the day after. As a result we took another >>>

Gross Fiescherhorn

Datum:

17.05.2022

Tourcharakter:

Randonnée/Telemark

Tourlänge:

10:31h

Entfernung:

16,4km

© Hannah Vickers Ever since last summer’s little foray into the Bernese Oberland, enjoying some superb days on the Gross Grünhorn & Grunegghorn and Finsteraarhorn , I had been very keen to go back and ascend some of the other 4000ers using skis for the approach and a plan was made with Graham (mountain guide I've climbed with previously) and Rachel to do this in May this year. I was in some doubts over whether there was much point in bringing skis at all after hearing how poor the winter in the Alps had been this year, but Graham assured me the week before that it would be definitely be worth bringing them. Fortunately for us too, the weather forecast didn’t look too bad at all and after some debating over whether to start from Grindelwald or Fiesch, we eventually opted for the shorter drive to Fiesch which was also much less expensive since we >>>

Pointes Lachenal traverse

Datum:

13.05.2022

Tourcharakter:

Alpinklettern

Tourlänge:

5:21h

Entfernung:

11,9km

© Hannah Vickers Tredje og siste dag på tur i Chamonix. Etter to dager med isklatring (i svært behagelig temperatur!) var det deilig å avslutte oppholdet med to korte ryggtraverser fra Aiguille du Midi. Begynte dagen med å krysse Col du Midi-platået for å traversere Pointes Lachenal som har tre topper - vi gikk fra øst til vest, så den første toppen var enklest og krevde ikke noe mer enn å gå opp en 40-graders snøbakke. Deretter fulgte vi ryggen over andre toppen og tok en liten rappell ned til snøeggen mellom andre og tredje toppen. Den tredje og siste toppen var mest "krevende" og begynte med en slags kaminformasjon med et kort parti med 4er klatring (fremdeles med stegjern på). Fant gode hånd- og fottak etter litt leting og det var deilig å ha stein under hendene og føttene igjen! >>>

Cosmiques Arete

Datum:

13.05.2022

Tourcharakter:

Alpinklettern

© Hannah Vickers Gikk over Cosmiquesryggen på vei tilbake til Aiguille du Midi etter å ha gått Pointes Lachenal traverse . Folksomt på ruta og litt kø før første rappell, men heldigvis klarte vi å passere de fleste taulagene og ikke bruke altfor mye tid på å komme oss opp til Aiguille du Midi-stasjonen :-) Det var faktisk veldig gøy å gå denne traversen igjen, 19 år etter første gang jeg gikk den i juli 2003. Hukommelsen min må være ganske dårlig, for jeg ikke husket noen ting fra den første turen, bortsett fra cruxet - en blank vegg av granitt på et par meter som nå er blitt mye "lettere" å gjøre med stegjern på da det er nesten skrapet ut skreddersydde hull til fronttaggene etter såpass mye trafikk her... Uansett, mye artigere enn å traske opp i snøen som vi gjorde dagen før!