Alpine week 2015 part 3.2 - Zinalrothorn normal route

After an already long day on the Obergabelhorn we still "have to" climb yet another big moutain, and a truly spectacular one indeed, the Zinalrothorn. At the beginning our plan was to climb the super Rothorngrat, but because the Arbengrat was quite covered in snow we decide not to tackle it and to attempt the normal route instead. Additionally, we are not 4 anymore but only three, so the progression on a technical ridge would be considerably slowlier in three. And honestly, we are also a little bit tired from the day before so...

Yet another early wake up call in the morning and off we go in the dark towards the glacier. This first part of the way up I already did lat year with my brother, but it seems smoehow all completele different. At the beginning of the glacier we rope up and start walking up trying to follow the less steep route. I'm not the best when it comes to this as I pick up the steepest and most direct route all the times, just pushing my legs without caring too much...eventuallt however we get on a ver well trodden track which we decide to follow. The glacier has to be followed up tp a point where a marked couloir comes down from the P3786. In my opinion this is a rather tricky passage because it's all very loose and there are lots of people in it at the same time. After this short section there is one long traverse direction W and then some zig zagging up on rocks and snow (depending on the amount of snow). In the end we reach the more gentle slope between P3786 and P3761. 

Climbing up in the sunrise, this easy section was good for warming up

The route follows the snow ridge and then the glully up to the famous saddle, called the Gabel

View back on the snow ridge

And now things get a little bit more "serious"

After a short break we continue on the ridge from which the views with the rising sun are really spectacular, especially the nice little "cloudy hat" of the Weisshorn. The normal route looks quite crowded from here, but we'll manage to overtake most of the people. At the beginning we stay a little bit below the ridge and then, instead of following the rock climbing part on the left of the couloir we stay in the couloir. It's probably not the safest option but that allows us to progress a little bit faster than the otherr groups and to overtake most of them. Towards the end of the couloir we are forced to get back on the rock until we reach the saddle where the normal route and the Rothorn grat meet. 

Up to here the temperatures have been relatively warm, and even without wind. But from here onwards we get to climb for a while in the shade on the west side of the mountain and it's not that warm anymore. The route first goes up following the relatively broad ridge and then traverses to the left (facing the summit). On the traverse there are a few bolts and at the end even a stand. From the end of the traverse a rather steep slope of ice, snow and rocks has to be climbed to get back on the proper ridge. A few "eisenstange" have been planted for helping belaying. 

After this steep bit we are back on the ridge, and also back in the sun from time to time. From here the route follows the ridge, with some traverse on the shady (west) side but without any major difficulty anymore. In 30 minutes more than the Biner guidebook suggests we get to the top of the second 4000m in two consecutive days. Beying roped up as a group of 3, and given the fact we are not exactly fresh we reckon it's a reall good time!

Weisshorn with a really cool hat

The three of us on the top!

Big mountains all over the place

Once again the views from the top are really good and the ideas one could get of stuff to be climbed has practically no limit. It would have been really cool to extend this traverse up to Weisshorn...but that will be something for another time. Compared to yesterday it's not too pleasant to stay on the top because of wind and not exaclty warm temperatures. But on the other hand we have to get moving...today our target is not just to get back to a hut but back to Zermatt!! The view of Zermatt from up here is not that inviting...it's going to be a rather long walk back down.

The descent goes a little bit slowlier than the ascent. This partly because we decide to abseil some of the sections and partly because there are other people that are still climbing up on the normal route. Those are mainly the people that have climbed the Rotgrat, and that therefore took a bit longer than us to make it to the top. Looking at other groups, and especially at mountain guides, I understand something useful...which might be obvious, but still useful. If you want to be fast on the way down you have to downclimb everything. Abseiling is only for those things which would be really tricky or very difficult to downclimb. But everything under grade IV one must be able to downclimb without too many problems. This way the descent goes a lot faster...but the risk of falling is of course also a lot higher. As always, a matter of compromise. 

Last abseil to the Gabel

Abseiling with the down jacket still on...not exactly very warm!

Anyway, once back to the beginning of the couloir we can relax a little bit and keep descending until we reach the glacier. At this point we had already taken our crampons off, and for some funny reason still decide not to put them on on the glacier. We think there will be enough snow on the glacier...but we were wrong! A relatively small section of blank ice requires a lot of time to be walked down...so we thought we could save some time by not putting the crampons back on, but in reality we ended up losing even more time because of walking down on blank ice without crampons and having to cut steps from time to time. On top of it, we were even exposed for quite a while to rocks falling from the above face. So it was a really bad decision not to put the crampons back on, but hey...this is something I learned for next time.

Back into summer and looking forward to the next cold beer!

Back at the hut we get first a cold beer to replenish the liquid, and the mind. Then we repack everything and start the more than 1500m descent toward Zermatt. It goes a lot faster than I think, but maybe this is because we break down the descent with two more beers at the restaurants that we find on the way!