Planned and done? the weather
Anyone travelling in the mountains knows that tours of this magnitude should be well planned. The moody weather in particular can quickly throw a spanner in the works. The weather situation was observed and discussed in every free minute and at various coffee breaks and meetings. Unfortunately, the weather changed every hour. But once you've got something in your head, it's hard to get away from it again.
Planned and done, we set off early in the morning in the direction of the Kandersteg car transport. Up to this point, the weather had looked stable. In the Rhone Valley, however, the clouds were already much lower. But highly motivated and full of energy, we packed our backpacks in the car park at the Eggishorn valley station and set off. Past the grey screen of the summit webcam, "just in time" into the gondola and off to the top!
But as is the case with the weather...!
You couldn't see your hand in front of your eyes. We tried to find the start of our tour using the map, but quickly realised that this was a hopeless endeavour!
As skiing in these conditions was no fun either, we decided to at least try to find the start despite the poor visibility. For hours, we wandered more or less disoriented through the uniform grey, with no idea where the top and bottom were. As the weather promised to improve in the afternoon, we took a long lunch break at a snow-covered mountain hut. We took this opportunity to test our ice tools in the combined alpine hut terrain.
The weather improved in brief moments of clearing. This made it much easier to get our bearings, and in the end we even found the start of our tour: in good visibility, it was just two minutes from the Eggishorn mountain station! In high spirits, we made our way home through the fog and enjoyed a rowdy descent into the valley with some fun passages.
In the evening, we dried our clothes at a crisis meeting in the cellar of a small pizzeria. After reassuring ourselves that the weather forecast predicted an improvement for the next few days, even though it snowed heavily in the evening, we decided to give it another go the next day. After a well-earned beer, we set up our sleeping quarters in the car park at the valley station.
Finsteraarhorn, day two
Indeed, the first glimpse of the sky was promising; blue skies and white-powdered mountains. Once again, we packed our backpacks and took the gondola back up. In contrast to the day before with a bright blue sky. We briefly enjoyed the magnificent view and found ourselves in a gully that was just over 30 degrees steep.
First the pleasure, then the work!
After a nice warm-up, we put on our skins and headed towards the Tälligrat. Once there, we were treated to a magnificent view of the last slopes of the Fiescher Glacier and the Märjelensee and the imposing Aletsch Glacier in front of us, our next destination. After it had snowed overnight and there was still fresh powder left over from the previous day, we couldn't resist leaving a few fat lines on the way to the largest Alpine glacier?
On arrival at the glacier, we prepared our safety equipment, harness and rope, and set off surrounded by a fantastic backdrop. A seven-hour ascent over the flat glacier to the Finsteraarhorn hut awaited us. We took our first break halfway up on the Konkordiaplatz below the Konkordiahütte; with views of the Aletschhorn, Jungfrau, Trugberg, ...
Freshly fortified, we set off on the second, increasingly steeper part of our tour. The path to Grünhornlücke proved to be a test of fitness. What's more, dark clouds were gathering from the north-west. As is the case in the mountains, these were quicker than expected and just as we reached the Grünhornlücke with its stunning views, we were back in the fog. Fortunately, our final destination, the Finsteraarhornhütte on the other side of the valley, was still somewhat recognisable. The crossing of the Fiescher glacier, however, was like a rollercoaster ride. With no contours at all, we started off on steeper terrain, later descending flat towards the hut (3048 m).
With the last of our strength and our skis on our backs, we fought our way up the via ferrata to the hut (70 metres altitude), where a delicious soup was already waiting for us.
After lengthy consultations with the hut warden, Hans Winterberger-Lohner, and despite the fact that the Finsteraarhorn summit had not been climbed for weeks, we decided to give it a try the next morning. We fell into our beds in our "own" room completely exhausted - nobody had dared to climb up to the hut in this capricious weather and we were the only guests. The restless night at an altitude of 3048 metres wasn't really enough to recover - the blisters on our feet were burning and our calves were aching when we met up for an early breakfast.
