Wild High Level Route – day 4 – Wildstrubel (Thursday 20th March)
27th March 2008
ascent : 705m, descent : 1180m
We got a weather forecast the night before in the Wildstrubelhütte which gave a pretty grim picture of the next 48 hours, high winds and snow storms starting in afternoon and worsening on Friday. So, like the start of our tour we had to change plans, originally we would have headed for the Lämmerenhütte and spent the night before making an ascent of the Daubenhorn on Friday with a descent to the Gemmipass and down in the lift to Leukerbad. But, high winds and avalanche risk ruled that out, we guessed the Leukerbad lift was unlikely to be running leaving us trapped up on the Gemmipass and there’s no way to ski down to Leukerbad from there. Another escape route would have been to traverse the Gemmipass and drop down to the Kandersteg where the lift was also likely to be closed and the potential ski descent to Kandersteg ruled out as too risky in the conditions.
So, the plan formed was to ascend first the Weisshorn (2948m) , on the slopes of which the Wildstrubelhütte stands, ski down to the Plaine Morte glacier (2700m) which is at the top of the Crans Montanna ski area, then ascend the Wildstrubel (3243m) itself before skiing down to the Gemmipass (2314m) hopefully outrunning the weather system by making an early start.
And there we are (photo) at 0640 on a cold morning outside the Wildstrubelhütte preparing for the short climb to the Weisshorn summit.
GPS / Google Earth Track File :
Above left, sunrise over the Wildhorn. Above right, on the summit of the Weisshorn in the early morning light.
Above left, looking back at our descent tracks from the Weisshorn onto the Plaine Morte glacier.
The sides of the Wildstrubel are slightly steep and we’re making some interesting kick turns on steep, icy ground in places.
And when we reach the summit we’re caught up by some other skiers who’ve bought their dog out with them, the dog’s got boundless energy and is having a great day out, running around introducing himself to us all and rolling in the snow although it’s cold enough that he’s got a jacket on!
And then we make a fantastic descent, hundreds of metres of great powder in stunning scenery before hitting a flat section just before the Gemmipass where the weather starts to close in and we ride the lifts back to Leukerbad and the valley.
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