Alpine Climbing & Skiing: Frost Guiding Blog

Unlike in Zermatt, everything in Saas Fee was working smoothly and as advertised on the website, and we were soon riding quickly up lifts crammed with teams of junior racers. Heading off towards the Feejoch you leave the crowds behind and, despite being on some of the most popular 4000m peaks in the Alps, we saw no-one else all day.

Traversing the Feechopf is easy enough (but airy and exposed!) and leads to the alphubeljoch at the foot of the South ridge of Alphubel. This is in excellent snowy condition, but I forgot to take any pictures.

The ski off the top involved both types of snow, some of it nice to ski, but is a quick and fun way back down.

A quick re-traverse of the Feechopf leads back to the Feejoch. From there it's only 30 minutes to the top of Allalinhorn, although the snow here was firm and quite delicate to skin up. Not a place to blow a kick turn...

Plan A yesterday was to use the Klein Matterhorn lift to go and climb/ski Pollux and Castor. Although the website said it was open, it turned out the lift is broken and won't be running until late November at the earliest. Hmmm, on to Plan B then!

The Breithorn is well known for being a short ascent from Klein Matterhorn, and the easiest 4000m peak in the Alps. Starting from Trockenersteg adds another 900m vertical, and makes it all quite tiring!

The mountain was unsurprisingly deserted, and the ski off the top was firm but good.

There have been a few pictures on the internet recently of early-season ski trips. A snowy summer and unsettled autumn has left glaciers well covered and some promising conditions (skis on the September Pigne traverse would have been fun!), so we got up early and made the long haul up the Pigne d'Arolla this morning.

We walked all the way to the glacier but skinned from there, leaving training shoes behind in the rocks...

...and it was worth it!

And a welcome sight!