After some great early season ski touring, Tom Crothall approached me with the idea of a ski tour where we could 'stretch our legs'. With this in mind we set out from Verbier to Leukerbad, taking the lift up to the Gemmi Pass where we skied down to the Berghotel Schwarenbach above Kandersteg on the border between the cantons of Valais and Bern. It was a slightly surreal evening enjoying a 4 course dinner in a mountain hotel where we were the only guests. We were given a warm welcome by the guardian Peter and his family as we studied the map for our route the next day. Our intended route was to set out from the Schwarenbach and link three summits; the Rote Totx (2848m), the Steghorn (3146m), and the Wildstrubel (3244m). Linking these three summits would require over 20km of travel (much of it glaciated) and more than 2000m of vertical ascent. When the alarm went off at 0530, and I looked out the window, it was clear that more fresh snow had fallen than we thought, and the visibility was very poor. All the forecasts we had seen indicated an improving situation so having consumed as many calories as we could manage at that time in the morning, we set off in the pitch black and falling snow to claim our triple summit day. The map below shows our intended route. Tom eyeing up the fresh snow at 0600 Within the first 20 minutes it was clear that our objective would not be a walk in the park as we struggled to find the Rote Chumme that wold take us up to our first summit. We underestimated the effect of the fresh snow and bad visibility on our rate of ascent, and on two occasions started climbing too early before having to descend again. Eventually we located the right area and reached the plateau to the south of the Rote Totx. As dawn broke it was much easier to navigate despite the still poor visibility, but more importantly we felt more comfortable assessing and managing the avalanche risk given the freshly fallen snow. We made our way up the southern shoulder before following the eastern arête to the summit. Despite the delicate conditions we were happy that we had found a safe route to our first objective. Olly breaks trail en route to the summit of the Rote Totx (2848m) visible in the background Having reached our first summit, we laid eyes on our second objective the Steghorn. Having wasted time with navigation errors early on in the dark, and having underestimated the extra effort of cutting trail in the heavy humid snow, we were behind schedule and looking up at the steghorn, we joked that it looked more like K2! Tom's nervous laughter when we set eyes on the Steghorn Before we could consider our second summit we first had to ski off the first. Our research on the route had suggested it was a simple traverse to the next col, but we were in fact faced with a very bare rocky arête. We swapped the skis for boot crampons and ice axes and began to down climb. As we got lower, the exposure increased, so to be on the safe side we built an anchor and rappelled the rest pleased that we had packed the rope! By now we were well behind schedule so decided to pull the plug on K2 (or the Steghorn if you prefer) and ski down the Lämmerental and go straight for the Wildstrubel. Olly abseiling off the the Rote Totx At the base of the Lämmerental on our way to the Wildstrubel Tom doing his bit on the front Once we reached the base of the Wildstrubel Gletscher, we roped up and continued our push towards the summit. Despite our increase in altitude the snow remained heavy and after 7 hours of skinning, our highly technical mathematical calculations revealed the simple truth; we didn't have enough time to summit and return to the Gemmi Pass for the last lift. We made the painful decision that any experienced alpinist will understand, to give up on our summit bid and run for home. We set out to tick off 3 summits and only managed one. It was however an incredible learning experience for us both. We were tested on all fronts from managing avalanche risk and poor visibility, to nutrition and hydration during 8 hours of physical exertion. It's days like these that help us develop as alpinists far more than the spring bluebird days where you follow an old skinning track to summit glory!
The Wildstrube remains on 'La Liste' and i'll be back there soon with Tom if he'll put up with me again!
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