The weather forecast is decent and (after some effort) we manage to find free beds in a hut, so we took a long weekend around the 1st of August and went off to the mountains for a long weekend. We've got a very exciting new guidebook for alpine climbing (it's like Dani Silbernagel wrote this one for us :-), and that inspires our choice of the Cabane de Moiry as our base.
Since it takes forever to get to that part of Switzerland, we head down to Grimentz on Saturday (after a nice bouldering session in the morning) and get the first bus up to the Moiry glacier parking lot on Sunday morning. On with the packs and up the valley we go, enjoying the lovely views and the good (though definitely not empty) trail that takes us up, up to the hut. 70 minutes later we're at the hut, where drop off stuff we don't need for the day and then immediately head back out to do our first tour.
Sunday: Aiguilles de la Lé traverse
The first part of this one is finding our way up to the Col de Gardien. There is supposedly a yellow blazed path which leads up to the hut's small climbing crag, but we never end up finding that. Still, we know where we want to go, so we just take a logical route up, up across the talus. Past the crag we actually run across a few cairns that we follow the rest of the way up, up to the saddle. Here we have a quick food break and put on the climbing gear while enjoying the amazing views (particularly really nice view of the Weisshorn and friends on the other side of the valley) and watching a group do the first part of the ridge. After the break we start our way along the ridge.
The first bit of ridge takes us easily, with some light scrambling, up to the south peak of the Aiguilles de la Lé (p3158). On the way up we pass the other group (five guests and a guide) on their way back to the col. The ridge continues, descending, until we get to the Col des Aiguilles. We're not super efficient on this first part: we've got a bit too much rope out and it takes a while to get into the flow of where and how to keep ourselves safe while still making progress. From the col the ridge heads steeply up. The next bit is more climby, so we let out the rope and do a couple of easy pitches before taking up coils again and shortening the rope to have about 15m between us and moving on. The ridge is now narrower, more exposed, and more scrambly. It's super fun. Along the way we end up with a cloud coming up from the E side which makes for dramatic pictures but robs us of the long view along the ridge. According to our topo, we're supposed to leave the ridge after the N peak (the SAC description continues along the ridge to the next saddle, but our book says that the last piece is dangerous), and at some point we figure that we've past the peak and are approaching the yellow tower which marks the descent to the next pass. So we head back to the peak we've just passed and take a food break while looking around for the descent, which isn't obvious (even though it's supposed to be). Meanwhile another team of two catches up to us. After looking at the map we decide that we aren't on the actual peak yet and continue along the ridge. More fun ridge scrambling (yay!) and then the actual peak (including a sad cross) comes into view. We do the last bit up, take some pics from the narrow peak, and then head down to the W "ridge", which is obvious at this point. The other two opt to follow us down instead of continuing along the ridge. The descent is steep, but not hard and it's pretty easy to follow a mix of cairns and use trail down, down to a small saddle where we leave the ridge to the N. More scrambling and descending and we end up on a big talus field with the final descent couloirs in view. Down, down we go across the talus to a nice green nob where we have a quick food break and pack the climbing gear away. We realize that we've come down to the wrong couloir, so after the break we head back up 50m or so and traverse to the correct couloir. This is an easy steep descent and we're back down on a more normal slope in no time. Across the grass to the path to the hut we followed earlier in the day and then up, up to the hut. Dinner, some view admiring, and then we're off to bed.
We were a lot more efficient on the second part of the ridge. We had a bit less rope out (maybe 12m) and focused on placing slings or cams to try and ensure that there was always one piece of protection between us instead of always using rock spikes and really minimizing the amount of time with both of us on the same side of the ridge (we still did some of that, but tried to keep moving as much of the time as possible).
Track:
Stats: 6:40, 7.8km, ~1030m up and down
Monday: Couronne de Breonna traverse
We're underway at 7:15 after a good breakfast. Today we're both a bit nervous about the approach to the planned route since it's not obvious how straightforward it's going to be to get off the (easy) glacier or to manage the last steep bit up to the Col de la Couronne. We follow the marked path down to the glacier, put on the crampons, cross the dry glacier (we come off near a big cairn with a pole sticking out of it), stash the crampons and ice axes under a rock, and then follow the clear use trail easily up to the top of the moraine. A bit along the moraine and then another (less clear) use trail takes us off to the left and up, up towards tht col. We end up being able to follow this more or less all the way to the top (we lose the trail in the talus fields, but it's always possible to find it again).
At the col we have a quick snack, enjoy the views, put on the gear, and start the climb. Another team shows up as we're leaving, but they end up being considerably slower than us. We start with two pitches for the first steep bit and then use the same efficient ridge technique as on Sunday to do last bit up to the Clocher de la Couronne. We find the abseil anchor, do the 5 abseils down to the saddle, and then continue along the main ridge. This has six towers, some of which we go over and some we go around, the topo is good and there's almost always a use trail indicating the right direction. Plenty of scrambling fun on the ridge with a bit of easy climbing mixed in. We do another food break and enjoy the views before the last steep bit of climbing (there's even an actual bolt in this part... crazy!) and then at some point we reach the peak. This isn't totally obvious on the ridge, but that's not so important anyway... we're just continuing along the ridge and down to the Col de Breonna. :-)
There are apparently one or two places where you can abseil, but we end up just downclimbing everything and have more fun scrambling the rest of the way along the ridge and to the col. Another food break, pack away the gear, plan our strategy for heading back down, and then off we go. We take a distance-efficient route back down to the blue-white path which will lead us to our gear... this is a nice walk, but it probably would have been more time-efficient to head more or less directly along the use trail to the blue-white path. Anyway... once on the trail we follow it along the moraine. There are a surprising number of day trippers on this trail; likely they are all just taking advantage of the relatively easy apporach to get close to a glacier. Back at our gear we put on the crampons, re-cross the glacier (now there's a group doing crevasse rescue practice), pack everything away on the other side, and then head up up to the hut.
Back at the hut we have some cake and spend a relaxed afternoon enjoying the nice weather, views, and chaos on the terrace. Dinner, more views, and off to bed.
This was another really good day of climbing and scrambling. It felt like we were pretty efficient for most of the day and didn't spend too much time messing around with the gear or doing unnecessary pitches.
Track:
Stats: 8:35, 10.8km, ~1200m up and down
Tuesday: Zinal via the Col du Pigne
The weather forecast is a bit dodgy, so we aren't clear what we're going to do until after we've had breakfast and checked the radar. Things look stable enough to take the more interesting route, so after packing up all our stuff we follow the blue-white path up up to the Col du Pigne. It's only a short bit along the ridge to get to the Pigne de la Le from here, but we opt to skip that and just head down the other side towards Zermatt. The first bit of the descent is in terrain where it's nice to have the trail there (steep, not great footing) but then things flatten out a bit and the walking gets easy. Great views of the other side of the Aiguilles de la Le and what would be great views across the valley except for the low clouds. Down, down we head, with a very small amount of rain and hail along the way. Down in the green we pass a couple of groups heading up towards the hut. We go past a big group of ibexes just hanging out and chilling in a group of rocks (boy do they not care about us being there!). Down, down we go until hitting the red-white path which takes us the rest of the way down to the valley floor. There are tons of people down here! The last bit is flat along a trail/road next to the river until we get to the edge of Zinal. Here we head to the bus stop and start the long trip back to Basel.
Stats: 3:50, 10.6km, 360m up, ~1500m down
Track from the whole trip:
