15th September 2007
Looking back the signs for the day didn’t look so good. I’d arrived at Grindelwald at about 0645 in plenty of time for the first train and sat in the car with a cup of coffee from my Thermos. But, looking up the mountain I was already beginning to think the clouds on the summits were heavy and maybe more than were going to clear during the day. The next surprise was that due to some confusion at the guides office the person I’d been expecting to join for the climb had pulled out earlier in the week and the guide had been expecting just one client. After some discussion we decided to make a group of three but the other client had some concerns about his fitness before we left.The plan was to climb the normal route of the Mönch, that’s the south-east ridge passing the minor summit and then moving on the main summit at 4109m. The Mönch is one of the big three summits of the area, the others being the Eiger and the Jungfrau. Legend has it the Jungfrau, or virgin in German, is protected from the Eiger or ogre by the Mönch or monk.
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Article Tags>> Climbing | Grindelwald | Jungfrau | Mönch | Switzerland.
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5th August 2007
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I noticed that Swiss Alpine Guides in Interlaken were running an ice climbing day up on the Steinegletscher and decided to go along. I’ve never really done much ice climbing apart from on mixed routes which have been mostly rock. I also thought it would interesting to see how effective some crampons I’d bought recently were on vertical ice. Normally I only use them steep snow and glacier travel.
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Article Tags>> ice climbing | Switzerland.
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29th July 2007
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The Breithorn is reckoned to be one of the easiest 4000m peaks in the Alpes mostly due to the fact that the Klein Matterhorn lift takes you all the way to 3870m so it’s a short climb of 300m or around 1000 ft to the summit.Really, I wanted to ski this back in April but I’d left it a bit late in the season so it was a chance to take a look at the route and have a day out.Google Earth File( private note : I know I said I’d post the GDB and GPX versions but I don’t have that MIME type set, email me and I’ll send them, likewise, I have more photo’s so I can send them) Read the rest of this entry »
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Article Tags>> Breithorn | Climbing | Hiking | hiking in Switzerland | Skiing | Switzerland | trekking in Switzerland | walking in Switzerland | Zermatt.
Posted in Climbing, GPS Track File, Hiking, Zermatt | No Comments »
Looking back the signs for the day didn’t look so good. I’d arrived at Grindelwald at about 0645 in plenty of time for the first train and sat in the car with a cup of coffee from my Thermos. But, looking up the mountain I was already beginning to think the clouds on the summits were heavy and maybe more than were going to clear during the day. The next surprise was that due to some confusion at the guides office the person I’d been expecting to join for the climb had pulled out earlier in the week and the guide had been expecting just one client. After some discussion we decided to make a group of three but the other client had some concerns about his fitness before we left.The plan was to climb the normal route of the Mönch, that’s the south-east ridge passing the minor summit and then moving on the main summit at 4109m. The Mönch is one of the big three summits of the area, the others being the Eiger and the Jungfrau. Legend has it the Jungfrau, or virgin in German, is protected from the Eiger or ogre by the Mönch or monk.
