Swiss Alps - Mittaghorn, Saas Fee - 8th August 2020.

We had planned to do the Via Feratta on the Mittaghorn 3143m, but we didn't know that all the gear hire shops would be shut on the sunday! So without any VF kit we decided to still take the normal, steep walkers path to the Mittaghorn summit. After a short walk from the top of the Plattjen chairlift it's straight into the grind of alpine uphill walking, but it's all good acclimatisation for the higher peaks to come later in the week!

 

Looking up at the massive rock lump of the Mittaghorn.

Looking down from the path up to the summit.

Lorna taking a break on the way up. The Mattmark Barrage can be seen in the distance.

Ibex also taking a break on the slopes of the Mittaghorn.

Myself and Lorna on the slightly chilly but clear summit of the Mittaghorn.

Looking along the ridge from the Mittaghorn to the Eginner.

Video from the suimmit.

Our first closer view of the Allalinhorn which we planned to do in a couple of days.

From left to right;
The Eginner (snow-less) 3370m, Allalinhorn 4027m, Feekopf 388m and Alphubel 4206m in the clouds.

And on the other side of the valley, the Saas Allmagell side you can see the Dri Hornli Ridge with the Allmageller Hut just visible to the right. The hut would be our stop over if we choose to do travers over the Weissmies and down to Hohsaas above Saas Grund.

On the descent, we also saw the Brittania Hut at 3030m which would be our accommodation if we did the Hohlaubgrat route to the summit of the Allalinhorn at some point during the week.
We got back to the Plattjen lift and went down to Saas Fee and found we had still had time on our hands, so we had a go at the high wire course with it's various obstacles and zip wires, ending with two crossings high above the Fee Gorge. Sadly on the same day, someone died whilst attempting the Via Feratta and zip line route lower down in the gorge unguided.
 

 

Lorna on one of the rope course obstacles.





Video of my first crossing of the gorge.

And here she is again taking the return zip wire back across the Fee Gorge.






And finally back across the gorge and the end of the course, which turned out to be hard work in the end!