I put lots of pictures went on Facebook and Instagram this summer but The Blog has been a bit neglected - it's time for a catch-up!
To start with, here are a few photos from 3 Lyskamm traverses this summer. I usually try to avoid repeating routes in the same season (there is so much to do that there's no need to do the same thing twice!) but this year Lyskamm was in great condition and it's such a beautiful route anyway.
Each traverse was quite different - really cold and windy on the first one, pleasantly warm on the third...lots of fresh snow on the second one but rock-hard on the other two. The first one (June) we finished quickly down a snowy Grenz glacier and walked out to the train the same day. Doing the same in August we found the glacier much trickier to descend with lots of zig-zags and some BIG crevasses - this was a few days before the Dom crevasse "moment", a subject for another blog?
If you start from Klein Matterhorn you can traverse Castor and stay at Quintino Sella on Day 1, then traverse Lyskamm, descend the Grenz glacier to Monte Rosa hut and walk out to the train on day 2 - a long way but it saves another night.
Oh - there are 2 Quintino Sella huts in the Alps...make sure you book the right one!
The third time we stayed at Margherita hut where it snowed 10cm overnight leaving us a very snowy and deserted Dufourspitze traverse the following day - everyone turned back from Zumsteinspitze. This is a fantastic high-level 3-day trip with 8x4000m peaks. The slog to the train didn't get any easier...
