My most memorable 'alpine' route is arguably not 'alpine' at all, based on the loose definition above, but so far as I'm concerned the spirit and nature of it qualify it as such. Fortunately the Alpine Club agreed with me as I used it as part of the qualifying requirements for membership!
The route was a Winter traverse of the Cuillin Ridge on the Isle of Skye in February 1996. Bizarrely enough, for something which I am now so pleased about, the route had never occurred to me until the evening before. We were sitting in a pub in Fort William trying to work out what to do for the next week, given the poor ice conditions on Ben Nevis and most of mainland Scotland, and decided, everything being so warm, to go to Skye and attempt a traverse of the ridge. We fully expected to find the usual bare rock, just a colder version of a Summer traverse. Wrong!
We arrived the following afternoon, having bought a guidebook, map and supplies for two nights on the ridge and a bivvy near the start on day one. On first sight it was clear that the hills were in their very rare Winter condition, very white indeed. Three nights later we descended from Sgurr Nan Gillean to the Sligachan Hotel to some very welcome food and drinks.
Another particularly memorable, and definitely alpine, route, both for its quality and the events during it, was an ascent of the Cresta Rey on the Dufourspitze as part of a traverse of Monte Rosa. Mark and I began the route after a night in the Balmenhorn bivouac hut; unfortunately for us the hut also contained one person who was permanently and loudly glued to his mobile 'phone, another who was very ill from the altitude and a group of three who deemed it necessary to get up, noisily, two and a half hours prior to setting off. Nonetheless, we made good time to the foot of the ridge and a tricky bergschrund crossing on a superb day.
Thereafter things slowed down a bit; we'd not climbed many AD routes before and took a couple of hours longer on the ridge than would have been ideal, arriving to a brilliant view from the summit when most people on the normal route had already left. By the time we reached the col between the Grenzgipfel and the Zumsteinspitze the snow was softening a good deal, but we were spurred on even more by the arrival of the afternoon thunderstorm, somewhat unreasonably ahead of schedule. I was particularly inspired to move quickly when lightning hit a spike about 10m. behind Mark and also very impressed at how relaxed he was about this as we headed off to scuttle up to the Margherita hut for an unscheduled hut night. Alas, my admiration for his steady nerve diminished somewhat a few days later when it became clear that he had been bizarrely unaware of the near miss!
One of my favourite routes to date is the North West ridge of the Grand Cornier, in the Pennine alps. This peak is immediately North of the Dent Blanche and just under 4,000m. Its height is significant; if it were a mere 39m. higher it would be overcrowded, as are so many of the 4,000m peaks of the Western Alps, but at 3,961m. it can be climbed in peak season without seeing anyone else at all - delightful! This mountain is a very pertinent example of how quality routes are neglected as a result of the "4,000er" mentality. Very handy if you're not one of those pursuing that particular, somewhat arbitrary, goal!
We originally planned to do the route from the car park above the Moiry dam but, arriving there in the early hours of the morning from Saas Fee, the sky was turning overcast. Not wishing to risk the weather, we bivvied in the car park and had a leisurely day before going up to the Moiry Hut the following evening for a more conventional start to the climb.
The route starts off across stones above the Moiry hut and then moves onto the glacier for a while before taking the West rib of the small, triangular snow face on loose but easy rock to the North West forepeak of the mountain. There then follows around 300m. of very enjoyable scrambling along a sharp, near horizontal rock ridge, with a few small steps, to reach the summit. The other two ridges are also excellent and the North East face is a splendid, straightforward ice climb when in condition.
My ascent of the Barre des Ecrins was a bit of an accident really. We'd spent a few days climbing in the far East of Switzerland and then heard a "bad" weather forecast. Said forecast suggested that Austria was going to remain fine, so we headed East with the intention of wandering up the Gross Glockner. This was possibly the worst relocation we've ever done. After something like six hours of driving we arrived at a campsite just ahead of a spectacular, but highly unwelcome, electrical storm; this was not exactly "as forecast"!
The following day was somewhat less damp but grey and overcast. We drove up the remarkable hairpin road to the view point at the Glocknerpass and marvelled at both the remarkable lack of view and the phenomenal range of tacky souvenirs available in the shop by the glacier viewpoint. Time for another relocation.
A few phone calls to friends and weather lines led us to the inescapable conclusion that the only place to go was the Dauphine. Consulting the road atlas was a dismaying process, we could hardly have been further away and still in the alps! Many hours later we arrived at the Argentiere camp site just in time for a few drinks and a meal, having taken a completely ridiculous route, and two days, to get there; the upside was that the weather here actually was "beau" as advertised.
The following day was beautifully clear and we were soon up at the Glacier Blanc hut en route to a bivvy near the foot of the route. Here we gained a couple of ice tools from some British climbers who'd had a bit of an epic on our chosen route, the Barre Noire North Couloir and the NE ridge of the Barre des Ecrins, the year before and insisted on generously lending us a pair of tools to supplement our two alpine axes. The sunset and sunrise at the bivvy site, up on the glacier below the Ecrins hut, were superb and we had a good nights sleep, so good that we overslept by an hour and awoke around 0400.
This was the point at which the only "bad thing" of the day occurred. Mark had buried a two litre water bladder in the snow to avoid it freezing up overnight; a good plan. Unfortunately, the snow on top had, unsurprisingly, frozen. Utilising an ice axe to dig into the snow Mark managed to puncture the bag, leaving us with only a litre of water between us; not a good start.
Nonetheless, we were soon heading up the couloir, where the extra tools came in handy, and quickly onto the North East ridge, which proved to be covered in soft, unstable snow and took some time to surmount. The situation on this ridge is superb, with a precipitous drop to the left and a view all the way down to the car park at the head of the valley (which looked an awfully long way off). We were also treated to a clear view of the crowds on the "normal route", most of whom chose to visit the Dome de Neige, which is above 4,000m but only a very minor top compared to the grandeur of the true summit of the Barre. Descending the North face we were further bemused on seeing people stopping for food right in the middle of avalanche debris; scary.
This is a fine route and a huge improvement on the "normal route". Whilst we'd had no intention of climbing it a couple of days earlier, we almost felt grateful for the weather which had ejected us from Switzerland.
I've not actually managed to climb the Piz Bernina yet, but I did take several photos of it from the Piz Morteratsch when I was there. The idea had been to then ascend the Biancograt the following day but this wasn't to be as the weather deteriorated. Still, the route up the Piz Morteratsch was enjoyable, it really is a good viewpoint, and the trip up and down the valley to the Tschierva hut was made more relaxed by taking a horse drawn "taxi" both ways - though the speed of this particular transportation system means that it's almost quicker to walk! The Hotel Roseg, on the route in, is also notable for the startling number of stuffed animals on display; it's amazing that there's anything left alive up there given the volume and variety of furred and feathered creatures adorning the walls.
The Pigne is a nice route as a warm up for bigger things or for taking beginners. These photos were taken during a circular route, up via the Barrrage de Mauvoisin to the Chanrion hut, to the Vignettes hut via the Odemma glacier and then traversing the Pigne to emerge at the Barrage des Dix after a route march along the lake to catch the last postbus. A good two days to gain a bit of fitness.
I was much better pleased with this photo than I was with the route up the Strahlhorn from the Britannia hut. I'd not only hurt my knee but was feeling seriously unwell for most of the route too, which took ages due to the glacier being in very difficult condition. Not something I'll be repeating in the near future!
This route, now the normal route from the top of the cableway, was a distinct mistake. The views from the top were good but the actual ascent took only slightly over an hour, whereas the first cablecar up was appallingly crowded with skiers and seemed to take forever! We only decided to do the route since we had a half day left in Zermatt and it "seemed like a good idea at the time". Still, it had the redeeming feature of offering a good view of Monte Viso, or so I believe, which was novel.
