Monday 26 April 2010

Bernese Oberland ski touring

Above. Mike at the Lotschenluke preparing for the long ski down to Fafleralp and Blatten. Behind left is the Gross Fiesherhorn and center is the Finsteraarhorn.
Climbing up towards the summit of the Gross Fiesherhorn
Mike on the summit of the Gross Fiesherhorn (4048 m)

We are back in Chamonix after few days ski touring in the Bernese Oberland. From The Monsjoch Hut we climbed the Gross Fisherhorn, and then made our way to spend the night at the Finsteraarhorn hut. From there we went to ski up the Finsteraarhorn, but several small things went wrong in the morning using up precious time and eventually it all added up to us being simply too late to make the summit safely so unfortunately as a guide I had to make the call to back off, which of course sparked some heavy discussion, but its a guides life to make calls like that! The weather was closing in , so we decided to make an exit and after going back to the Finsteraarhorn hut we skinned over the Grunhornluke and had good ski down to the steep ladders which took us to the Konkordia hut where we enjoyed some mid morning tea. We then continued on to skin up to the Lotschenluke and then a great ski down to Fafleralps and had to walk the last three kilometers into Blatten. From Blatten after a well deserved beverage we caught the bus back to my car and drove home to Chamonix. Next on the cards is some rope skills refresher training and maybe some rock climbing and a plan to ski Mont Blanc in the next few days.

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