Smiler Cuthbertson - Mountain Guide

The poor weather this season was becoming a drag. James and Hilary had planned to rendezvous with me at the Bahnof Hotel in Zermatt, and Hilary and I would climb the Matterhorn.

Unfortunately, during their training run-up to my arrival, there was a return to very bad storms in Switzerland, as well as Chamonix, in fact all over the Alps!

Frequent mobile phone conversations were informing me of the snowy conditions on the Hornli route, and it was clear our climb was not going to happen. So I suggested they drive over to Argentiere on their first of two days with me.

We had a great time in sunshine for the first part of our climbing on the Grand Floria. Athena was superb and using my 60m ropes we abseiled in two long stretches to the sacks. The wind was strong by now and sure enough, they closed the bottom cable car from Le Flegere to the Le Praz. Quite a number of people were stranded, children included, and we all had to walk down the gravel track! It only took us just an hour, but others were having a harder time.

Next morning, we drove down to Thones, above Annecy, and I took James and Hilary up the classic Via Ferrata above town. We had a great day on the ladders, including the thrilling overhangs at the top. Not bad for their first experience on Via Ferratas. There’s no doubt, they’ll be seeking out more trips like this, back home in Switzerland. Maybe next season the Matterhorn (and the weather) will be kinder to Hilary?

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 29th, 2006 at 2:23 pm and is filed under Alps. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.