Mittaghorn Via Ferrata - Saas Fee, 17th August 2014

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Epic on the NNE Ridge of the Egginer from the Mittaghorn, 8th August 2011.

Hoping for a cloud inversion on the Mittaghorn summit.

Looking at our first gendarme as we head south along the North-North East ridge of the Egginer. I was a bit apprehensive at first as although it was meant to be no harder than V-Diff for some of the moves, I was aware of there being no one else on the ridge and despite being able to see some of the lift stations, they still seemed a long way away.     

Some of the scrambling/climbing was scrappy in places, not too difficult but was it a sign of things to come?

Occaisionally a veil of cloud would cover the ridge adding to the drama closely followed by a brief spell of hailstones which was worrying, but it soon cleared leaving us just the cloud to peer through.  

The next gendarme was more "soild" and a variety of lines seemed possible although I aired on the side of caution and tried for the simplest!

We were getting close to what I thought was the lowest point in the NNE ridge, and the sight of the small glacier below seemed to confirm that. The last downclimb seemed trickier than it should've been, but we were soon on a level-ish section with possibly 20m or so to what appeared to be a final downclimb before the descent. 

At this point,after doing so well for our abilities, I suggested that instead of staying on the crest, we take a  gradually descending traverse line towards the final descent. I went first on belay, but as I moved along and down, it became clear that there was a lot of unstable rock. It was hear that I had my first feelings og doubt at my route choice and told Lorna not to descend as far as me, but to go back up to the crest (no more then 10m above) and make herself safe.
Once I was back on belay, I followed the rope as Lorna was out of sight for a while due the nature of the blocks and pinnacles.
At about 5m from the crest I came to a fridge-freezer size block.
Here it was basically walking around the large rocks, and as I stepped between the block and the mountain side - it moved.
From here everything happened so fast. The block toppled like a domino and broke in two (maybe more?). The top half went downwards, which was good as Lorna was not directly below me, and at least 5m along and very slightly below. However the remaining piece of rock decided to defy the laws of science and bounce, slide and roll towards Lorna.
As I shouted to her to move, she jumped into a recess, but not far enough.
The rock caught her right ankle between another rock , essentially acting like a vice resulting in a broken ankle.                

Looking across the the NNE ridge of the Eginner. Not far from the lowest point is where we were picked up by the Air Zermatt helicopter. I never got the names of the pilot, loadmaster or the paramedic that was winched down to us, but they were all amazing, calm and non-judgemental. Rolf, the Saas Fee mountain rescue guy who came with them was also brilliant,especially with his "shit happens", quotes!
At some point in this blog I will return to this post and talk more about the rights, wrongs, mistakes or wether it was just an accident?        

Swiss Alps - Mittaghorn Via Feratta 3144m, 13th August 2010.

With a forecast of Scottish style weather we opted for a shorter easier day and took the Alpin Express gondola to the middle station at Morenia 2550m. From there we took the well marked path over various boulder fields to the start of the Mittaghorn Via Feratta. This is graded Easy-Medium and is a far cry from the Jegihorn we did earlier in the week. In fact most of the route is rough exposed walking on the ridge and we didn't clip on for a lot of the route until the final steeper sections. The fact that we had Scottish conditions though did make the rock quite greasy in places and despite it's low grade, in some parts a slip could still spoil your day!
   

The route basically follows the ridge all the way to the summit cross which can just be seen through the mist.

It's only near the top that the route becomes a little harder with a few stemples and the occaisional exposed move, but all very easy and well protected. The summit was pretty chilly so we had a quick bite and headed back down the walkers path and another well earned beer in the deserted Plattjen restaurant before taking the lift back down to Saas Fee. Tommorrow we plan to do the Weissmies by the normal route so a fairly early night is in order.

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!