I had met Richard on a mountaineering course in Chamonix and had said, “we should climb some mountains together”. One says these things, but they seldom happen, so I was delighted to be driving to Saas-Fe to climb the Nadelhorn with Richard and without a guide.
Nearly all my climbing has been with guides, although I managed to summit some easy peaks in the Monte Rosa range last winter with friends, we had failed on the Dom. This was my first unguided summer route and so I was feeling really motivated to make this a success. Richard would agree that I am the more experienced mountaineer and so I was leader. Richard would also be the first to admit that I am a lot fitter, so we knew fitness and speed might be an issue.
We made our way to the hut via a fairly full on via ferrata type route – we made it line with the guide-book timings, so I was impressed with Richard’s effort. The hut had closed for the summer and so we were staying in the winter room (no heating nor facilities). We were joined by a German threesome who seemed to be fairly inexperienced as they had tried twice to summit and failed and two young German chaps who were planning to complete the Nadelhorn, Stecknadelhorn and Hohbergrhorn traverse.
We cooked our freeze-dried chicken korma (delicious) and were in bed by 7pm with alarms set for 3:00am. Freeze-dried porridge for breakfast (also delicious) and we set off at 3:45am in the pitch black with warm weather. We made easy work of the initial spur (although the German boys overtook us very quickly) and I was pleased with my route finding although, to be fair, it was not difficult – but the Germans had got lost on their first attempt!
We then roped up and made the arc around the crevasses to cross the glacier. We had practiced crevasse rescue on our course, but I really did not want to test how much Richard remembered. On our failed attempt on the Dom I had made the decision to take the back position as I knew if Duncan or Colin had ended up in a crevasse – I could get them out. However, I think not taking the lead on the Dom was an error on my part and was one of the reasons for our failure to summit. I therefore took the lead and I have to say it is quite intimidating being in the front, especially when its pitch black, the route is hard to follow and some fresh snow has hidden the narrower crevasses. It felt a little like walking through a mine field, never knowing when the next step could be fatal. Fortunately, we made it across without incident.
The next challenge was the steep face up to the Windjoch (windy col). The inexperienced Germans had said the route was obvious but in the dark we could not find any obvious route. The terrain was a mix of grit and ice (it resembled concrete) and it was hard to get good traction given the steepness. We followed the route in the guide-book but it was nasty and I thought about abandoning. Whilst a slip and fall would (probably) not have been fatal it would have been messy. However, it would have been harder still to go down than continue up so I checked the map and knew it would soon become easier and so we pressed on and I was pleased that we eventually made it to the col.
The “windy col” was, not surprisingly, very windy – very, very windy in fact and very cold. The wind was the thing that had turned the Germans around on their slightly more successful second attempt. We put on everything we had and continued on. At this point we were treated to a spectacular sunrise, one of those life affirming, “living the dream” moments. The sun offered some compensation for the bitter wind.
The route follows an easy ridge line and I short-roped Richard all the way along. It was pretty straightforward and I felt strong and confident. There were a couple of “delicate” icy spots and a fall would have again, been messy but (probably) not fatal. We were moving so slowly due to Richards fitness and lack of acclimatisation that putting in ice screws to secure these sections of a few metres would have been very time consuming. Perhaps we should have done, but we just walked very carefully across these parts without incident. The route concludes with a scramble up some flaky rocks. It was not difficult and the consequences mild so we “moved together” using natural features for protection. It was really satisfying to reach the summit and after the mandatory summit selfie, we headed back down.
The delicate icy moments were navigated successfully although I was wondering what my guide Bertrand would have done in these circumstances – I always ask myself, “what would Betrand do” in these situations. The “wall of death”, as we had christened it, had softened up in the sun and we descended easily and the glacier, in the daylight, turned out to be surprisingly free of glaciers so I need not have been so concerned.
It was a long-day, 8 hours, which was longer than the guidebook and to put this into context, the two young Germans completed three summits in the time it took us to do one. Richard is committed to building his fitness ahead of any future adventures.
After collecting our gear from the hut we headed for the lift which had a 4:30pm final departure. We should have made it comfortably, but Richard was now very tired (and under fuelled). We were slow and I was getting nervous about the lift. The descent seemed to have grown in length and went on and on. There is one final climb back up to the lift and so I almost ran up it, dropped my pack and then went back down to offer to carry Richard’s pack as an insurance policy against missing the lift. To his credit, Richard put in a final effort and carried his own pack and we made it with 30 minutes to spare.
It was a great trip – I think we made good choices (possibly with the exception of the icy bits) and it was fantastic to reach the summit. It has given me a lot of confidence to tackle more of the remaining 22 peaks on my list of 48 4,00m peaks in Switzerland on my own and satisfying to be over the half-way point with 20 years remaining before my 70th birthday – my target for completing the list.
Expeditions 