The alpine week of last summer was very good...even though technically not really advanced. So this year I decide to repeat the experience, but pushing it a bit to more "interesting" things!
Traverse Egginer-Mittaghorn (AD/III)
On Friday evening me and Markus leave direction Zermatt. For the following day we still have no idea what to do, since the weather is not really looking wonderful. At the end, on the Saturday morning itself, we decide to walk up to the Egginerjoch in Saas Fee and do the full traverse between Egginerjoch and Mittaghorn. The plan is to leave all the bivy gear at the beginning of the route, and then to go back there after the traverse. If not too tired we are going to wake up very early in the morning and climb the Allalinhorn. The guidebook says that it takes 4 hours for the complete traverse, so it should be feasible.
Route finding however is not that easy already at the beginning, and soon after we start we have to get back on our steps to find the correct route. It follows roughly the ridge on the left hand side and then traverses on a large band on an offset large flat rock to get on the right side of the ridge. From there a few indications and a couple of bolts denote the route to get back on the ridge. Straight afterwards another band on the left leads quite comfortably to a not so comfortable steep field of loose rocks. There is not really a defined path to get up there but we first went straight up then traversed on the right and then back to the left. Anyway...somehow you need to get back on the ridge on the left hand side of this.
Afterwards the route finding is easy since most of the route is on the ridge or slightly on the left side. Depending on season you might even find snow in this bit...but it's only a "Sunday afternoon stroll" so nothing to worry about. To get to the top of the Egginer there is yet another short technical climbing section to be overtaken, which has to be protected with friends or nuts...that is...if you want :). Once on the summit of the Egginer, according to the description of the guide book, we pretty much thought that the whole thing was finished...last famous words?? To descend from the top back on the ridge you need to head slightly to the right hand side of the ridge, NE, and shortly descend to a stone man where the first abseil point is. At the bottom of the first abseil (probably around 15m) you need to move slightly in the direction of the ridge, and there is a second abseil point. There is even another one further on, but that's quite old and I would not trust it anymore that much! From this other abseil point you can reach another one (again heading towards the ridge) which is just two slings around a spike. Do not abseil further from this point! We kind of lost an hour or so trying to figure out where to go. However, from this point you need to just head back on the ridge and avoid the big gendarme on the West side, on an exposed but rather easy ledge. For us this was the trickiest point...not really technically, but more in terms of finding the correct route!
From here the route is straight forward and you simply need to keep following the ridge. It's not difficult, but still requires some attention. There will only be one more abseil point. You could try do downclimb it, but we did not see any obvious possibility without risking a long fall! According to the guide book once you start climbing back up to the Mittaghorn di difficulties are over...but we did not see it that way. There is one last bit of climbing which prove not to be too easy afterall. It's a steep jump that could be climbed in a crack on the left hand side (no bolts, only friends or hexes if you have them) or on the right. The rocks are quite polished on a little ledge where you need to get up, crawl on your knees until you get around the corner. You can't stand up because above the ledge there are overhanging rocks. After the corner it's quite easy to get up in a chimney. And from here the difficulties are really over, until the summit!
Afterwards we descend from the normal route following the blue and white path back to the Britanniahütte. It gets dark quite soon and we have to walk with head torches for a while. Our plan is then to get back to the start of the route where we left all our bevy gear and sleep there. We feel pretty tired by the time we are there...if this is only the first day of the alpine climbing week I don't want to imagine what's going to happen on the last one! The plan would also be to wake up early and try the Allalinhorn, but it starts raining in the night and we decide to pack our stuff and wait in the cable car station for the first cable car down to Saas Fee. There is no reason to overdo it today...since there is still a full week ahead of us!
Unfortunately no picture from this full traverse!
Afterwards the route finding is easy since most of the route is on the ridge or slightly on the left side. Depending on season you might even find snow in this bit...but it's only a "Sunday afternoon stroll" so nothing to worry about. To get to the top of the Egginer there is yet another short technical climbing section to be overtaken, which has to be protected with friends or nuts...that is...if you want :). Once on the summit of the Egginer, according to the description of the guide book, we pretty much thought that the whole thing was finished...last famous words?? To descend from the top back on the ridge you need to head slightly to the right hand side of the ridge, NE, and shortly descend to a stone man where the first abseil point is. At the bottom of the first abseil (probably around 15m) you need to move slightly in the direction of the ridge, and there is a second abseil point. There is even another one further on, but that's quite old and I would not trust it anymore that much! From this other abseil point you can reach another one (again heading towards the ridge) which is just two slings around a spike. Do not abseil further from this point! We kind of lost an hour or so trying to figure out where to go. However, from this point you need to just head back on the ridge and avoid the big gendarme on the West side, on an exposed but rather easy ledge. For us this was the trickiest point...not really technically, but more in terms of finding the correct route!
From here the route is straight forward and you simply need to keep following the ridge. It's not difficult, but still requires some attention. There will only be one more abseil point. You could try do downclimb it, but we did not see any obvious possibility without risking a long fall! According to the guide book once you start climbing back up to the Mittaghorn di difficulties are over...but we did not see it that way. There is one last bit of climbing which prove not to be too easy afterall. It's a steep jump that could be climbed in a crack on the left hand side (no bolts, only friends or hexes if you have them) or on the right. The rocks are quite polished on a little ledge where you need to get up, crawl on your knees until you get around the corner. You can't stand up because above the ledge there are overhanging rocks. After the corner it's quite easy to get up in a chimney. And from here the difficulties are really over, until the summit!
Afterwards we descend from the normal route following the blue and white path back to the Britanniahütte. It gets dark quite soon and we have to walk with head torches for a while. Our plan is then to get back to the start of the route where we left all our bevy gear and sleep there. We feel pretty tired by the time we are there...if this is only the first day of the alpine climbing week I don't want to imagine what's going to happen on the last one! The plan would also be to wake up early and try the Allalinhorn, but it starts raining in the night and we decide to pack our stuff and wait in the cable car station for the first cable car down to Saas Fee. There is no reason to overdo it today...since there is still a full week ahead of us!
Unfortunately no picture from this full traverse!
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