KANDERSTEG SUMMER CAMP

THE LEADERS EXPEDITION

PHOTOS BY MARK AND DAVE

RESTING NEAR THE TOP

The picture on the left was taken near the top of the snowfield. In the center of the picture above Dave's head can be seen the clouds still covering Leukerbad and to their right the ridge along which we had just walked. On the far right can be seen snow fields down on the glacier from where we had climbed earlier in the morning.

As we neared the top the weather started to close in. The Balmhorn has two peaks and we first reached the lower one some 30m below and 300m away from the summit. Lack of energy and closing clouds caused some of us to question the sanity of continuing but we were talked into it.

We descended the first peak avoiding the bergschrund crevasses and climbed a gravely rib next to the ice to the final summit.

LOOKING DOWN ON THE HOCKENHORN RIGHT OF CENTRE

The top is marked by a large wooden cross with a record book attached. Andy added a note from us all to the record book as it started to snow. Before the fog engulfed us we were able to look down on the Lötchenpass and the Lötchenpass hut where we had stayed a few nights before.

THE SUMMIT

The above is the view we had of the Hockenhorn and the ice field on the right from which Mark and John were rescued a couple of days earlier.

MARK REMOVES HIS CRAMPONS
ALTELS (3630m) IS THE PEAK BEHIND HIM

Descending mountains is generally considered to be more dangerous than climbing them. If you trip forwards on a steep slope you will be falling away from the ground not onto it. Additionally we would be more tired and in this case the weather would be worse. It would be fair to say that none of us were particularly looking forward to repeating the hellish route from the glacier to the ridge in reverse.

Fortunately the sleet and rain eased off as we descended the ridge and had more or less stopped for our slide down the scree ridden route to the Glacier.

The descent was as slow and unpleasant as we imagined. When we stopped to put our crampons on for the final time Geoff lost his footing and nearly lost his ice axe and himself down a small bergschrund crevasse. He ended up with a cut face as a memento.

DESCENDING THE RIDGE - SUMMIT IS LOST IN FOG BEHIND US.

GEOFF NEARING THE TOP OF THE GLACIER

PUTTING CRAMPONS BACK ON FOR THE GLACIER

GEOFF PLOTS A ROUTE ACROSS THE ICE

THE DESCENT FROM THE RIDGE - ROLL OVER WITH MOUSE

REMOVING CRAMPONS ON A MEDIAL MORAINE

Once on the upper reaches of the glacier we took a different route down that allowed us to avoid the particularly crevasse ridden part of the glacier that we had picked our way trough on the way up. It also allowed us to get much further down the glacier walking on ice before we had to remove our crampons to pick our way across lose rock.

To see the route roll your curser over the photo above.

The higher Glacier was still avalanching so we skipped across that area very swiftly and started to search for our bivvy site which we had never seen in day light before. Here we hoped to find our sleeping bags still buried under rocks.

RECOVERING SLEEPING KIT - WHEN PLACING tHE KIT HERE IT WAS DARK & THEY DIDN'T KNOW ABOUT THE ICE CAVE UNDERNEETH

WALKING ALONG FOLDS IN THE ICE

SLEEPING BAGS AWAY AND SHORTS ON!

At the bivvy site we rested and re packed our bags. We also considered it warm enough to change into shorts although some mad members of the party had felt this was the case from 4am. From hear it was a short walk to the edge of the glacier from where we would find the path back into the Gemmi pass.

By the time we were walking amongst the tourists in the Gemmi pass, we were tired and probably looked worse. Geoff's blooded face got a few odd looks on the cable car but we all felt we had completed a very good hike in a very safe manner.

BACK AT THE BAR


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