Well its been 10 days of excellent climbing and gaining new heights! Eddy had 5 days of Alpine intro course in Arolla which he thoroughly enjoyed, and no doubt he'll write a few words of his own. We bumped into each other in Saas Grund at the Mischabel Camp site - Grita - thanks so much you and yours were just lovely! I thoroughly loved the freshly baked croissants delivered each morning...We got a little multipitch climbing done in the valley, played on the Mittaghorn via ferrata as a warm up, then wandered up to the Almageller hut to do the Weissmies (4027m) by the South South East ridge early the next morning and over to Hohsaas. It was a little thundery so instead of doing the Lagginhorn we walked down to Kreuzboden and rode monster bikes down.
The weather looked better the next day so we grabbed our window with both hands and decided to go for the Lenspitz (4294m)/Nadelhorn (4327m) traverse. This involves a 2km walk-in with 1500m of height gain...to the Mischabel hut. This was a hut which we had spied from the Mittaghorn, and mountain lust had set in on both Eddy and I's account. This is a fine fine spot, which I highly recommend to anyone without a fear of heights. It is a stunningly situated hut, with a gruff bluff warden who has a heart of gold. He watched us with his binos and fed us without complaint on our late return. An Italian guide had died on the descent a week earlier so we were really careful when we made our way back down to our tents.
The route we did was essentially two AD routes strung together, the traverse is especially compact, consistent and enjoyable, and the descent from the Nadlehorn is swift. We wandered up for about 0345hrs and the sky was clear and sparkled, and then the mountains turn to red. A very good day (although I did drop my water bottle... oops?).
It was an stunning trip and a brilliant warm up for the exped, and we left as storms deposited a heavy dusting of snow at 2000m, perfect timing!
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