Swissness

On July 20, 2014 by Tim Neill

Over the last 3 weeks I’ve been based over in Andermatt working for the Joint Services Alpine Meet. This is my 5th time working with the crew from all the Joint Services Adventurous Training Centres and this year included a week of staff training in preparation for the final 2 weeks of course delivery.

The weather was a little challenging for some of the time, but always allowed enough options to have a great time. Andermatt is surprisingly central to a lot of Alpine terrain with plenty of options at different altitudes on snow, ice and rock. The real attraction is a huge variety of super granite ridges and spires (although many are spoiled by being bolted ).

Grosse Beilinhorn summit with Ratty and Ho G

Summit ridge

Over the time there I climbed with lots of great motivated people…all with plenty of energy. When the weather allowed we climbed on the granite locally (this all clears very quick after poor weather) and during a particularly epic spell of weather we went to the Saas valley and made a Scottish ascent of the Lagginhorn and Jegihorn….never seen them so wintry!

Home run after 4000m success on a snowy Lagginhorn

Gloves on for the Jegihorn…normally t shirts in July!

On a couple of occassions we drove over the Gotthard pass to find the eternal sunshine in Ticino and enjoyed some fun climbing on the long slabs at Ponte Brolla.

Gneiss padding in Ticino

Sunny granite action somewhere near Furka pass

Some of the best peaks and sunshine coincided on the Grosse Diamanstock from the Bachlital hut above the Grimsel Pass and the summit of Dossen via the Dossengrat from the Dossen hut from Rosenlaui. This trip has a particularly spicy hut approach ( a route in itself) and we managed to sneak back via the spring ski tour to make our descent more fun.

Approaching Diamanstock

Gr Diamanstock and mountains out east

Dossenhut sculpting

Rab on the Dossengrat

So thanks to everyone for being great company in the mountains and well done to all those who gained awards over their time at JSAM. Looking forward to seeing you all next year!