Traverse of the Weissmiess

By Jenny Dart

There’s many reasons why a route can stick out in your mind and this one has stuck with me not only because of the stunning weather and the fact nothing actually went wrong (!), but because of the company we had along the way.

The sociable Almageller Hut Guardian sat us (as is usually the case) for dinner with others that were doing the same route as the next day – this can be a bit hit and miss. However, our dinner and route companions were top notch and we shared many stories over a fine Swiss hut meal. These were French Swiss and German Italians – one of the French Swiss was recovering from a Brain Injury and this was the mountain he wanted to return to throughout his rehab. As a Speech and Language Therapist working in Brain Injury rehab, this was an amazing story to hear and made me pretty emotional. We also stuck together on the route, and this really added to the experience as we all jollied each other along at different parts and shared a mid morning snack just before the dangerous serac/glacier crossing at the base of the North West Face. I think this was actually an unspoken game of chicken, as no-one really wanted to go first or last!! There was definitely a gallop down the last bit as the sun hit the looming creaking ice cliff.

This was my first 4000m peak and it had it all – ankle breaking moraine in the dark, a spectacular sunrise, enjoyable scrambling, a pretty amazing knife edge snow ridge and a bloody scary glacial descent. Plus a chair lift at the base of the mountain down to the valley! Winner!

At the base of the route over a coca-cola the French Swiss advised my boyfriend that he needed to treat his poor wife (me!) to a spa as I had tolerated the mountaineering so well…! It was actually in the Almageller Hutte that I really started to notice the lack of all female rope teams, I hadn’t really thought about it before. Hopefully when we go to Saas as a club in the next couple of years we can work towards re-addressing that balance.