Alpine week 2015 part 3.1 - Arbengrat and Obergabelhorn traverse to Rothorn hut

Part 1 and 2 of the alpine week of this year where only a warm up in comparison to part 3. Not that it was technically extremely challenging, but it required quite some endurance and the ability to cope with sometimes not the very best conditions.  Anyway, even though there is a little bit of fresh snow around the weather looks absolutely fanstastic and so it will be up to the end of the week.

The plan for the next three days is to get up to the Arbernbiwak, which seems a mission on itself, climb the Obergabelhorn via the Arbengrat and descend to the Rothron hut to finally climb the Zinalrothorn. Ueli Steck did the two things in a single day...but he's the swiss machine!

Up to now it's a walk in the park

And from here onwards the park gets a little bit steeper!

The approach to the Arbernbiwak starts in Zermatt, direction Zmutt and further down in the valley. It's a really nice walk that crosses some really cute and tiny villages in the sorroundings of Zermatt. Also for almost the entire way we have wonderful views of the freshly snown north face of Matterhorn. The Schmidt route is very clearly visible...one day...

At the Arberbach however things start to get a little bit more "serious" the path starts going up always steeper and steeper on the moraines, and at the same time the sun gets higher and higher in the sky. At some points the path becomes so steep it's almost uncomfortable to walk up, but luckily it does not last long. After the moraine there are a couple of section of "via ferrata" that are in the end not that easy, but add a little bit of fun to the otherwise very tiring approach. Nevertheless the south face of Obergabelhorn is always in very good view from the path, and it looks magnificent!

The north face of the Matterhorn is always in perfect view

Good that there are those chains...otherwise it would have been quite a lot trickier

Almost there...

That's a view!

Spaghetti tour!!

Sunset

After a good 5 hours (or less, I really don't remember now) we finally get to the Arbenbiwak. Temporarily we are alone but soon it will be totally full, to the point that some people will even sleep outside. This is probably the best bivy hut I've ever been to. It's well built and the views from up here are simply stunning!

Wake up call the next day is early as usual for this kind of routes and in a rather short time we are ready to go. There is no warm up allowed here, a few steps away from the hut the paths climbs really steeply on loose rocks and gravel. But at least we gain altitude quite fast. After a bit more than one hundred meters up there is a little section on the glacier where well trodden tracks bing directly to the beginning of the route. This is probably the most dangerous part of the route. It's a really long couloir which technically is not difficult, but where the risk of falling rocks is quite high. At the beginning we have to climb a few ledges sometimes following sparse stone mans. We do the mistake of traversing too much to the left (facing the south face) and then have to get back on the route via some rather slippery slabs. But eventually we manage to get on the normal route and follow this huge couloir. It's all pretty much free of snow and it seems the conditions are rather good, but as soon as we finally get on the ridge we get a rather bad surprise. 

That's not going to be much fun with fresh snow

Oh yeah

Almost like on a north face

Traversing to take the easy side of the last big gendarme

The entire ridge is covered in 10-20cm of rather fresh snow. It still did not have the time to transform and settle. This makes the progression on the rocks a bit slowlier than it should have been, simply because one cannot really trust most of the steps and the holds have to be cleaned from the snow. Other groups where considerably faster than us, but it all depends on how much risk you are willing to take. Some section of the route cross on the south face and here we can relax a bit because there is no snow. Route finding is rather easy, mainly because there are tracks to be followed already. We do not always stick to the very ridge because of the snow. The big gendarme for example is climbed from the left side (facing the summit) because its steepest side on the ridge looks rather tricky in this conditions. We climb partly on running belay and partly in small pitches depending on how tricky the things look to us. The whole thing is never really tricky, but it's just those conditions that require a bit more attention than usual. 

But sometimes we get to climb totally in the sun

Smile!

The other two guys that went more or less at our same pace

Finally we climb the very last steep part of the ridge to get the pre-summit. Up to here we have been most of the times in the shade and it was not exactly warm. But as soon as we get on the very last part of the summit ridge, and on the summit itself, it all becomes a lot warmer and even the wind seems to reduce to a pleasant breeze. And with such a clear sky like the one we have today the summit offers some really wonderful views all around. The one thing that get my attention the most however is the really big drop of the north face. From up here it looks absolutely fantastic and I hereby decide that I'm going to climb this one sooner or later!

Even though we know that the descent is not going to be short (it will actually be rather long) we still take a few minutes to enjoy the summit, shaking hands and hugs and why not getting something to eat. This is the first 4000m summit we all four summit together and it's worth to enjoy it!

And that is the top

Matterhorn and Dent D'Herens

Me on the top...ok, almost there!

Typical Usain Bolt pose

But now is time to go, and we walk the few meter that lead to the beginning of the long rappels of the normal route. This part of the normal route must be really cool to climb in the first place, but I'll maybe have the chanche to enjoy this another time. Abseiling as I once said it's always fun, but not when you have to do it for so many times...Anyway this is probably yhr safest way of getting down the mountain. Downclimbing in some sections would have probably been faster, but we decide to keep on abseling nevertheless. At the end of several rappels the route flattens a lot to a purely snow ridge. Thanks to the recent snowfall and to the people climbing it in the morning the tracks are very good and easy to follow. Good that despite the sun it still holds pretty well. 

Normal route...quite steep indeed

The first of a very long series of abseils

The famous big gendarme between Obergabelhorn and Wellenkuppe

After this flat section of the ridge we have to climb the so called big gendarme. From this side the amount to be climbed is not that much, and after a short traverse secured by massive fixed ropes we have to abseil again. At this point I must say that downclimbing with the aid of fixed ropes would have been so much faster...but we decide to keep on abseiling to stay "safe". 

At the foot of this big gendarme some tiredness starts to kick in, mainly because there is quit a bit to be climbed up before getting to the summit of the Wellenkuppe. And on top of all this the sun is now starting to soften the snow, and even walking in already trodden tracks is not exactly a walk in the park. After another short break on the top of the Wellenkuppe we have to again abseil a few times down its last seciton of steep ridge. Afterwards there is a sequence of scrambling and abseils which are rather easy to follow and find up until one gets on the south sides of the mountains. The last two abseils here are really loose and the risk to getting the rope stuck on the descent is quite high. As for most things in life you do need some luck and we are lucky enough not to get the rope jammed on the abseils. 

The perfect north face

The first abseils down from the Wellenkuppe. I reckon climbing this part up must be really cool

...abseiling...always abseiling...

We finally reach the Trift glacier, hoping that all difficulties are gone by now. This is more or less true but on the lower part of the glacier there are quite a few crevasses and not that much snow anymore to allow for nice bridges to be crossed. We feel nevertheless safe since there is four of us on the same rope but the uttermost attention is still required. At 17 we finally reach the very end of the glacier where we can finally put the ropes and harnesses away, and walk those last few meters to the Rothorn hut. It has been a long day, not easy and surely tiring. But we are all happy of what we have done and are looking forward to a big dinner and to get some sleep before we attempt another big summit tomorrow.