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- Written by: Emily Woodhouse
The cable car glides smoothly through the air in silence. Inside it smells like a new car, with plush leather seats and floor to ceiling wrap-around windows. It’s a panoramic view, designed to show off the commanding hooked peak of the Matterhorn – one of the most famous peaks in Switzerland (and, arguably, the world). I have my back to it though. The cable car is the last of three rides, taking us as high up from the valley as we can before we start our climb. Through cat-4 sunglasses, I stare up at the mountains.
Breithorn: a steep, grey, fragmented glacier rising into a snowy white pyramid, the top illuminated in sunlight. The cable car hangs directly over the glacier and you can stare straight down into the jaws of its crevasses. It looks hot outside. Not a perfect blue sky day, but plenty of it – good alpine ascent weather. Scouring the view, face close to the window, I search for any clues of what the day might bring. It’s the clouds that make me uneasy, hanging like spaceships over the high peaks. Perhaps this won’t be the dead-cert alternative we’re expecting.“A crash course in hut to hut touring ended up having far more emphasis on schnapps than skills development”Alpinism is quite new to me. One post-uni alpine tour on the Austrian-Italian border was all I’d ever done. And what I’d hoped would be a crash course in hut to hut touring ended up having far more emphasis on schnapps than skills development. But, as tasters go, it was enough. Standing at 3,467m on the last day, warm in a baselayer with a massive view across hundreds of snow-carved slopes and summits, I’d decided I wanted to do more. Then, upon returning to the UK, I’d proceeded to spend all my holidays in Scotland instead. Slogging up slushy slopes, battling horizontal hail and pacing blindly into white out. Winter was a familiar beast, but the summer alpine high life was entirely foreign. Reliable snow conditions and good weather? Still, if I knew anything it’s that when snow, ice and mountains mix, plans change. Until yesterday evening we’d all had our eyes on Allalinhorn, an imposing 4,027m peak looming over Saas-Fee. You could stand on our hotel balcony and stare it down, imagining yourself on its slopes, tracing a line with your eyes across the glacier. You see, this wasn’t just my first attempt at climbing a 4,000m mountain. It was a world record attempt, organised by Switzerland Tourism. 80 women from across the world, including a female guide for each rope team, had come to Saas-Fee to attempt the summit. There was a full range of experience: from alpine ninja to ‘first-time wearing crampons’.
“Today, the mountain presented a challenge. We sparred, it tested me and I passed”“It was sketchy,” she said. “Fine with one or two clients – get up quickly and get down quickly. But with 80…” Warm days and overcast nights meant soft snow up high. We needed hard snow bridges to safely cross the glacier, and under a serac, to reach the summit of Allalinhorn and make it home again. With 80 people, some who’d barely seen snow before, it would be too risky and too slow to climb. We needed to look elsewhere.
“I kept my hood up against the wind and concentrated on the line in front of me”We crossed the plateau, following a well established groove of footprints in the snow. Where the slope kicked upwards, we stopped to put on crampons. Sheltered from the wind by the mountain, I stared back towards the Matterhorn and its angular rocky tooth, almost bare of snow, while munching on a rather 2D cheese sandwich. I was finding it impossible to juggle snacking and walking, and using a pole, and not getting the rope in a tangle. It was far too much multitasking. At the rate we were going, we’d be on the summit for midday. It was definitely the moment for first lunch. Next up, the serious ascent. We formed into one long and tight line, with shortened ropes, and began to climb. The path in the snow made tight zig zags up the slope. We followed it at a slow and methodical pace. It felt strange not to be breaking our own trail but it did mean pristine snow either side of a narrow line of footprints, not a criss-cross of messy paths. Sure there are practical reasons for following tracks across a glacier. As mountain logic goes, it pretty much amounts to ‘they didn’t fall in, so hopefully neither will we’. Also, a made path is a line of least resistance to the summit. No rush, no reason to cut corners or push ahead, it was all so civilised.
“It was somewhere between mountaineering and performance art”Slowly but surely, we were getting closer to the top. A steady rhythm of steps and kicks, each foothold secure, a pause at the apex of every zig zag to swap hands on my pole. My rope team was very near the front of the line. At one point, as I turned, I caught a glimpse of the people behind me. There was a long tail of red trailing out behind us, weaving up the slope, jackets deliberately matching for the photographs. It was somewhere between mountaineering and performance art, a statement-making act in the Swiss mountains.
“It was a bit of a squeeze, but the joy of 80 women, most of us standing on our first 4000er, was contagious”We had some time at the top, taking photos and enjoying the view. Soon though, it was time to move on. After all, the summit is only the halfway point of a journey such as this.. A careful descent off the ridge degenerated into running, and we bounded down the slope once our crampons were off. The snow was very soft now. The long walk back across the plateau was punctuated with tugs on the rope, each time it was because someone had got their foot stuck hip-deep in a hole. Met with laughter every single time, we hauled each other out and carried on.
