Alpine Climbing & Skiing: Frost Guiding Blog

It's been a frustrating summer on the Dent Blanche with 2 earlier attempts ending in failure, the first due to huge amounts of snow, the second due to un-forecast howling gales. There may well be "no success like failure", but the Dent Blanche hut is a long walk for a lesson in humility!

Third time lucky, and with a perfect forecast...fingers crossed.

A late-ish after-work start saw us in the car-park at 2.30pm. 15 minutes later we were back up there, this time with 2 pairs of boots, ready for a sweaty 1600m to the hut.

We spent a pleasant evening, eating interrupted by frequent dashes outside to photograph the amazing sunset.

With only 1 other team and a solo-ist, the route wasn't busy. Weather was perfect, and we were off into a sunrise as amazing as the previous day's sunset.

The South Ridge has been snowy all summer and the lower part is still plastered, covering the usual easy rocks in easy-but-serious firm snow. Not a place to slip. The rock however was dry, so we climbed the direct line over the Grand Gendarme. Great, steep climbing on perfect, red rock.

From the top of the Grand Gendarme a short downclimb rejoins the normal route at the top of the couloir. From there, it's fine, exposed climbing over more gendarmes...

...before a traverse on the shady west face avoids the final gendarme.

Only 150m more ascent...all of it on narrow and exposed snowy ridge.

Getting back down is a mix of downclimbing and abseils.

In a normal summer there are plenty of metal spikes for anchors in the couloir, but at the moment the crucial middle ones are well buried in snow, meaning some cunning was needed to descend the rock-hard snow!

After a quick re-fuel at the hut, all that remained was a 1600m knee-bashing descent...

Whilst it's rarely crowded in Arolla, the Autumn leaves the mountains truly deserted. Peaks that can feel busy in peak season take on a different character when the huts close - wild and adventurous. Hauling heavy 'sacks loaded with 3 days of food out of Arolla, we passed 2 people walking down the path - the last people we were to meet for 3 days!

The Vignettes winter room is warm and cosy. Home for 2 nights - just the 6 of us and a few mice!

Day 1: the excellent traverse of the Éveque. Short, but with surprisingly tricky rock climbing and some "airy" positions!

With the forecast promising a settled high pressure and no precipitation, we were surprised to find 10cm of fresh snow in the morning! We went back to bed while the weather cleared, and were rewarded with a fine, clear day. Plan A was to traverse the Pigne and Mont Blanc de Cheilon, but the snow and late start meant (as so often!) that Plan B was needed, and we enjoyed a wild and beautiful traverse of the Pigne d'Arolla instead.

It's been a busy week. 3 countries, 3 huts, 3 peaks.

Switzerland, France and Italy were the countries (no surprise there)

We stayed in the Vélan hut for Mont Vélan. Only 6 of us there, and as the other 3 had gone up to celebrate the guardian's birthday we had the peak to ourselves. It's still in great condition - the normal route can suffer late season in dry summers. The scramble through the Col de la Gouille and the 1100m ascent make it a very good Mont Blanc preparation peak.

Next, we had a "rest day" up the Aiguille du Midi. A quick ascent of Pointe Lachenal and some quality acclimatising time drinking coffee at 3800m!

Off to Tete Rousse next, which as usual was an unforgettable "experience".

Turning back early due to the cold and high winds, we drove south for our third country. It's always a pleasure to visit the Chabod hut. The Gran Paradiso didn't disappoint either. Great conditions, fine views - and the usual summit frenzy confirming all the Italian/French queuing stereotypes. I guess Madonna is used to the crowds.

The traverse of Liskamm is one of the great high-level ridges in the Alps. Long, serious and committing, the Moran 4000m Peaks guidebook says "all members of the party must be highly competent". Gulp. Luckily the wind dropped, skies were crystal clear, and conditions on the route were excellent, giving us a fine day all round.

On the airy section between the two summits

Cornices on the main summit

It takes commitment to wear crocs on snow at 4500m, but the sunset was worth it.

Best food, best sunset, and most irritating room companions of 2014, at the Margherita hut.

I'm relieved to find that even the Italians call this route the "Spaghetti Tour". Setting off from Zermatt with our Matterhorn plans abandoned/postponed, we turned left for a very breezy Breithorn. Hard-to-stand-up breezy.

A bit breezy crossing the Breithorn plateau

Still quite blowy on the summit

After a nice night at Ayas, the "good" forecast turned out to mean "clear-but-blowing-a-gale", and chilly with it.

Grand Paradise at dawn

Cold and windy on Pollux

Then a quick snack and off up Castor...

4 climbers battling wind and spindrift on the Castor summit ridge

Fine views in all directions. Tomorrow's aim was looking particularly fine.

Second course coming soon...

We are delighted to announce that Frost Guiding has bought Moran Mountain’s Alpine Mountaineering business. We will now run Martin Moran’s popular Alpine Mountaineering courses from our base in Evolene, Switzerland from June to September.

Our program includes the old favourites:

• Swiss Big Three
• Performance Alpinism
• Alpine Progression
• Introductory Alpine Climbing and others

And we have some new intermediate/advanced level courses:

• North Faces Weeks in June and September/October
• 1:1 Eiger / Matterhorn weeks

We have also added a 3 day Mont Blanc extension to follow on from our other courses.

Judith Hawtree will continue to provide her warm hospitality and home baking at chalet “Chemin des Etoiles” where we offer shared and single occupancy accommodation.

The full 2015 Alpine Mountaineering and Trekking program is available on our web site now.