Mönch

Dato:

18.05.2022

Turtype:

Alpin klatring

Turlengde:

9:05t

Distanse:

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

Dato:

17.05.2022

Turtype:

Randonnée/Telemark

Turlengde:

10:31t

Distanse:

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 >>>

Finsteraarhorn

Dato:

11.07.2021

Turtype:

Alpintur

Turlengde:

7:15t

Distanse:

10,5km

© Hannah Vickers After having been up the Gross Grünhorn & Grunegghorn and walking over to the Finsteraarhorn hut the previous day, the plan was to climb the Finsteraarhorn via the upper southeast ridge (also referred to as the Sudroute in Martin Moran’s guidebook) as it would hopefully provide a more interesting route to the summit compared with the standard route from the Finsteraarhorn hut via the southwest flank and northwest ridge. However, since the entire southeast ridge was still looking very snowy when we checked it out from the summit of the Gross Grunhorn, we ended up changing our plans to do the standard route instead. Moreover, it seemed like there were going to be very few teams doing the normal route anyway, so there wasn’t much chance of it being too busy. Meteoblue had forecasted some early morning fog so I was expecting >>>

Gross Grünhorn & Grunegghorn

Dato:

10.07.2021

Turtype:

Alpintur

Turlengde:

11:07t

Distanse:

19,9km

© Hannah Vickers I haven’t spent much time exploring the Bernese Oberland previously, and the only two peaks I’ve climbed there before now – the Eiger and Schreckhorn sit more on the outskirts of the region rather than in the central part of the area. I’d always imagined my next visit to the Bernese Oberland would be on a pair of skis, having heard so much about how big the glaciers are and with rather large distances between the huts and 4000m peaks. Summer 2021 had other plans for me, with each sunny weather window being followed by a new big dump of snow in the mountains, which rendered a lot of steep snow routes avalanche-prone and the usually-dry ridges plastered in snow. However, a new weather window had appeared in the forecast and this time it looked like there might even be 3 full days of sunshine, which >>>

Bishorn East ridge

Dato:

06.07.2021

Turtype:

Alpintur

Turlengde:

10:03t

Distanse:

21,6km

© Hannah Vickers After having come back from Lyskamm, there looked like there might be a possibility of a new weather window on the tuesday the following week, but it wasn’t going to be a very long weather window, with more bad weather arriving already in the afternoon, ruling out any long and committing routes. After much pondering, checking of weather forecasts and consultations with Martin Moran’s 4000m guidebook I arrived at the conclusion that the East ridge of the Bishorn might be a suitable objective, since it would provide a more interesting line of ascent than the standard easy trudge up from the Tracuit hut, and the descent down the Turtmann glacier would be straightforward and quick(ish) though quite long. I ran the suggestion past Graham and we ended up settling on this as a plan and booked >>>

Lyskamm traverse

Dato:

02.07.2021

Turtype:

Alpintur

Turlengde:

11:28t

Distanse:

26,7km

© Hannah Vickers I first came to know about the traverse of Lyskamm during a trip to the Alps in July 2003. The original itinerary for the week had been to climb Castor, Pollux, Lyskamm and the Dufourspitze via the Margherita hut and Zumsteinspitze. In the end the traverse of Lyskamm never happened because the guide I was then climbing with decided it was too windy that day, and we ended up ascending Il Naso (the Nose of Lyskamm) and Vincent Pyramid instead. In hindsight I don’t think I had sufficient alpine mountaineering experience to do the traverse, which is basically a 2km narrow and exposed snow ridge so it was perhaps just a well that we didn’t do it that day. However, since then it has been high on my wishlist of routes to do in the Alps but for some reason or another there has never been the right >>>

Piz Bernina - Biancograt

Dato:

28.06.2021

Turtype:

Alpintur

Turlengde:

8:10t

Distanse:

13,0km

© Hannah Vickers After a week spent in Zermatt doing various acclimatization hikes, I relocated to the Chemin des Etoiles, a chalet in Evolene which has been (and probably will continue to be!) my annual summer holiday base for the last five years. Anyway, it was great to be back in familiar surroundings again, though the chalet was pretty quiet this week with only 4 of us staying there. I’d been keeping an eye on the weather forecast for several 4000m-peaks I had on my wishlist for this summer, but it looked like the best weather would be further east in Switzerland for the start of this week. I’d not been up Piz Bernina, and the Biancograt was one of the routes I’d wanted to do for a number of years, so it seemed like a good option to start with. Did a quick check with Graham, the guide who I’d be >>>

Breithorn x 3

Dato:

25.06.2021

Turtype:

Fottur

Turlengde:

4:34t

Distanse:

11,6km

© Hannah Vickers Siste dag med akklimatisering i Zermatt. Kokvarmt på fjellet i dag!

Breithorn x 2

Dato:

23.06.2021

© Hannah Vickers Tenkte det hadde vært lurt å utnytte det dyre heisbillettet og godværsvinduet og gå to runder på Breithorn ;-)

Hohtälli og Gornergrat

Dato:

22.06.2021