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LEFT: Mark Hutton, Andy Jones, Andy Lannin & Dave Gardener at the top. What's that buzzing? |
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Finally we reached the summit. The weather was now pretty bad. The wind was driving the snow into your face and the clouds were particularly grey. There was also a strange buzzing noise. At the top we decided that the buzzing, which seemed to be coming from the cross marking the top, was some king of transmitter inside the box mounted on the cross. However, we soon realised that this buzzing was being made by every metallic object around us and was a product of the impending electrical storm. There are certain places that it is not considered good form to be during an electrical storm. On top of a 3453m peek is one of those places. The lightening strike and huge clap of thunder finally alerted us to the fact that we were in the middle of a storm cloud.
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LEFT: Andy Lannin at the summit. |
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 | LEFT: Removing crampons before tackling the ridge again.
We made our way swiftly but safely to the bottom of
the snow field with the thought in our mind that most accidents in the
mountains happen during descent. When we reached the first spot of rocks
it was obvious how much snow had fallen since we were last here three
hours before. |
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ABOVE: Run like hell! On the ridge and there is a lot of Snow setting. And while on the ridge we are the highest things around and therefore at risk of being struck by lighting.
BELOW: Safely off the ridge and out of harms way. |
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We traversed the ridge quickly and descended to the safety of the scree which we had climbed up earlier. Now it was just a case of plodding back to the Hotel Schwarenbach for some light refreshment and some lunch. Every member of our party had safely conquered this 3453m peek. |
