Allalinhorn ENE ridge

Dato:

20.08.2014

Turtype:

Alpintur

Turlengde:

5:00t

© Hannah Vickers After our ascent of the Gran Paradiso North Face we descended back down to the valley from the Chabod hut in fog and rain showers and took a coffee break at the cafe at Pont. While here we had a browse through the guide books, got an updated weather forecast and thought over our options for the rest of the week. There seemed to be a bit of unstable weather until thursday, but friday looked to be a good day. After much discussion and suggestions, we made a plan to drive to Saas Grund and have a base there for the next two nights, and one night at the Almageller hut, which was more or less within the same area. So we made the long(ish) drive back from Italy over the St. Bernards Pass into Switzerland again and eastwards along the Rhone valley towards the Saas valley. To break up the journey a bit we stopped at a Coop >>>

Gran Paradiso North Face

Dato:

18.08.2014

Turtype:

Alpintur

© Hannah Vickers Summer in Norway has been superb and I never intended to travel abroad to indulge in mountain trips at all this year. It was only after some more recent climbing and scrambling-style trips that I suddenly realised how much I missed alpine-style trips and ended up dreaming of heading to some higher mountains again. Since I was feeling a bit rusty on climbing and ropework in general and was lacking friends to go to the Alps on a semi-spontaneous trip with, the obvious solution seemed to be to join a guided course. I was not entirely convinced it would be worth it since I had only heard talk about the weather being awful in the Alps all summer, but in the end I decided to take the chance anyway, I couldn’t imagine it would be worse than being out during a mild winter spell in Scotland could >>>

La Berneuse

Dato:

16.08.2014

Turtype:

Spasertur

Turlengde:

2:30t

© Hannah Vickers Tok en spasertur til La Berneuse i morges. Bra oppvarming til den kommende uken. Det er fullt mulig å ta heisen dersom det ønskes, men det går mange diverse stier (av høykvalitet) opp dit fra Leysin sentrum. Dette må sies: det er godt å nyte slike stier etter å ha blitt vant til å lete etter 'en slags sti' i Nord Norge de siste tre årene! Fin utsikt over hele dalen, mot øst og sør. Fikk ikke se mange topper i Valaisalpene på grunn av tåke/bygeskyer, men det var fin stemning likevel. På turen ned tok jeg en litt lengre variant tilbake til byen. Det finnes skilt over alt, så det er bare å følge dem som frister!

Tete de Balme

Dato:

12.01.2014

Turtype:

Randonnée/Telemark

Turlengde:

3:00t

© Hannah Vickers Hadde en fri dag i Chamonix før skikjøringkurs skulle foregå, så jeg brukte anledning til å dra på en liten tur i området og få litt bevegelse i beina. Hadde ingen peiling om hvor som skulle passe bra til skiturer her, så fikk litt råd fra chalet-eieren. Hun foreslo om å gå opp fra Le Tour til Tete de Balme siden det var lov til å gå opp fjellet på ski ved siden av skibakkene. Så det jeg gjorde. Tok bussen fra Chamonix til Le Tour, hvor jeg traff utallige mange skikjørere som var på ferie. Litt annerledes for noen som kommer fra Nord-Norge og er vant til å se nesten ingen andre på det samme fjellet! Uansett, tok skiene på og satte kurs mot den første heisen. Selv om jeg var heldig med strålende sol i dag, var skiføret svært dårlig. Typisk vårsnø som ikke hadde blitt >>>

Mont Blanc

Dato:

15.07.2009

Turtype:

Alpintur

© Hannah Vickers Wednesday, 15th July 2009 Bumming around in the morning and generally not rushing around was quite nice after 2 days of early starts. In fact, 10am actually came round pretty quickly and we were soon met at the apartment by our guides Hannah and Anthony to make the drive over to Chamonix (yes, it became something of a joke that there were actually three Hannahs in a group of 6). The general plan was to have lunch in Argentiere and then continue to the Aiguille du Midi station in Chamonix. Surprisingly it took less time to travel by car than it did when we took the Mont Blanc Express train, despite all the switchbacks in the road which probably made the route longer. It was about midday by the time we parked up in Argentiere and we sat at some park benches to eat our sandwiches. Chamonix was >>>

Weissmies

Dato:

14.07.2009

Turtype:

Alpintur

© Hannah Vickers Having a day trip to the Weissmies meant that we could carry relatively light rucksacks and there wasn’t too many things to have to think about packing. So at 6am, we bundled back into Anthony’s Audi and drove down to the Tamoil garage at Sion to meet Hannah, our other guide and also split up into 2 cars which would be a lot more comfortable for the journey up to Saas Grund. It was a dry, slightly overcast morning, which was getting gradually sunnier as we progressed further east and up the valley again. Saas Grund wasn’t particularly high up, and we were going to take the Hohe Saas gondolas up to the station at about 3100m, which would place us quite nicely for the ascent to the top of the Weissmies at 4027m. We left the Hohe Saas station about 20 minutes after jumping on at Saas Grund, >>>

Pigne d'Arolla

Dato:

13.07.2009

Turtype:

Alpintur

© Hannah Vickers Sunday, 12th July 2009 It was a nice, fresh morning we woke up to but it looked like it was gradually becoming more overcast as the morning drew on. Anthony, our guide, pulled up at the chalet at about 9.50am and our first stop was a gear hire shop in Les Hauderes, a couple of km down the road. Tobbe needed some proper boots and crampons, and Dan also needed to hire crampons. My chesty cough was still giving me much hassle, so I waited outside while they sorted out all the bits they needed. Once we'd driven to Arolla and parked up we began the walk in to the Dix hut. Mont Collon dominated the views at the top end of the valley, which stayed pretty much to our left. The air was warm but not too intense. At about halfway to the hut we reached a nice grassy plateau and stopped for some lunch. It >>>

Mont Buet

Dato:

10.07.2009

Turtype:

Fottur

© Hannah Vickers Thursday, 9th July 2009 It was a beautiful morning to wake up to. Blue skies, minimal cloud on the mountain tops and fresh air. Hanna and I had the room with the view too, which meant we could step out onto the balcony and look straight up to the Aiguille du Midi – what more could you ask for? We met up with Dan and Tobbe at 8.30am for breakfast, so there was plenty of time for us both to shower before that. Unfortunately the 7.50 Euros breakfast proved a little disappointing. Apart from the fresh bread, croissants and coffee, there wasn’t much else on offer to satisfy our hungry hiker’s stomachs! Nevertheless, after we’d finished up in the dining room, we left a bit of kit behind in the hotel and set off for the train station, via the supermarket, to stock up on some food for lunch >>>

Mont Blanc de Cheilon

Dato:

08.08.2005

Turtype:

Alpintur

© Hannah Vickers Monday 8th August 2005: Leysin – Arolla – Dix Hut The ascent of Mont Blanc de Cheilon was the first peak of a week-long student mountaineering course. Unusually we were a group of five girls (we didn’t know each other before the course started) with a Swedish alpine guide named Dick. Our preparations for the week kicked off on the first day when the five of us – Lucy, Rosie, Gabie, Anna and me - went on a grocery shopping expedition in the local Coop in Leysin having been handed 200 swiss francs by Dick. Our basket was quickly filled up with cereal bars, chocolate, dried meat and fruits, cheese and bread and some fresh fruit for the journey over to Arolla. After the shopping efforts, we eventually drove out of Leysin and down the winding road into Aigle at the bottom of the valley. The >>>

Cosmiques Arete

Dato:

26.07.2003