Tim Neill Guiding

A fairly unmistakeable mountain…..

A little while back Dave Rudkin and I had a weekend back in the Alps. After a month back in Wales, mostly climbing above or in sight of the sea, we thought we’d take 4500 metres by suprise and try and climb the Schmidt Route in a long weekend.

Checking out the route the evening before ……

I’ve always liked the look of it and for Dave, it’d be his last of the 6 classic Alpine N Faces … so motivation was high. We walked in to the Hornli hut with our friends Kev and Dave … they’d tried earlier in the week, but lots of fresh snow and fairly bleak conditions had turned them round. On the walk in, it was clear that everything had settled down with the recent rain and wind and things looked primo. We took a little walk out to the foot of the route in the late afternoon to make an easy to follow trail early doors…

At the top of the Ramp and starting a series of Rwards traverses…

Finest Swiss Valais rock ….

We left 3 30 ish and made quick work to the foot of the ramp feature for first light, and with perfect conditions made good progress linking a series of rightward and upward traverses to join the Zmutt ridge just a couple of pitches below the summit. By 1 30 or so we topped out to crystal clear views of, what seemed like, all of the Alps ….. pretty cool. The only time I’d been there before was a pretty “Scottish” day of wind, rain then snow, but no views!

Obligatory summit snap … amazing panorama of all the Alps ….

The satisfaction of having put in a track up the face after the recent stormy weather was now tempered by finding the most efficient way down a fairly snowy Hornli ridge…

By finding, then digging out the fixed ropes at the top of the shoulder we were soon on our way ploughing down towards the Solvay hut. Reaching here about 5 ish, we’d had enough of that for the day. Some brew, a little food and a scratchy blanket for the night seemed a good idea. First light saw us front pointing down the good early morning snow and a bit of sunbathing on the decks outside the Hornli before a longish walk back to Zermatt.

Autumnal stroll back to Zermatt ….

We made it back home to Wales later that evening, and so back to Tremadog for an MIA assessment the next morning….the routes seemed quite short and relaxing there.

Thanks to Dave for, as ever, another brilliant alpine climb….super efficient, great conditions