Climbing the MATTERHORN

1994

The Matterhorn from Zermatt

Ticking a box? fulfilling a dream I had held for nearly 40 years?  Here I was in Zermatt with my friend Rob Collister ready to guide me on the mountain, and my son, Peter, to see me off up the Hornli Ridge.  Wedged on the matrazenlager between a snoring Italian,and my son, sleep evades me.  Will I make it? Will I actually try? Peter and I had sat outside the busy hut the previous night looking up at the stars, the sky black and the mountain looming and waiting.  

Rob and I had done a practice climb on the Trifthorn a few days earlier, and I had come down to find that Peter was going to join us and walk up to the Hornli Hut.  I was overjoyed.  We ate Rosti and fried eggs in the sun, and the reality of a difficult mountain seemed far removed from the sunny touristy town, with horses clattering past dragging luggage boxes, and postcards of the Matterhorn for sale right and left.  As someone wrote "the mountains one dreams of....are not the mountains one climbs...matters of hard, steep, sharp rock .."  And the Matterhorn has a reputation for loose rock and stonefall.  

Rob on the Trifthorn

Taking the lift up to Schwarzee Peter helped with my pack, and we spent the evening in the Hornli Hut, which was packed out.  We rose at 3 to get an early start, in the dark, ahead of all the other hopefuls.  Struggling amongst all these people in the dark, Nescafe and dry bread were swallowed with difficulty, and I stuffed the chocolate in my pack to sustain me.  On went headtorch, and harness, and crampons and out the door we went.   We each tied onto an end of the rope, and Rob carried the excess in coils round his neck.  Hard work, and glad it wasn't me!

.M.A. and Peter

To begin with we had to overtake three ropes of Germans, blundering about in the dark then onwards and upwards.  We climbed fast, "moving together" with no breaks for a rest while we belayed the next section, so it was pretty relentless, but it is important to move quickly and continuously and be down again before the weather may set in.  I had learnt this over many years of climbing in big mountains, the weather can deteriorate in the afternoon.   Moving together is the preferred option.   We did stop and belay two places, the Moseley Slab and the fixed ropes.

No time for "enjoying the journey" really, till we came to these fixed ropes, where I had to wait while Rob climbed up and fixed a belay, then having got my breath back, and put on my crampons I ascended.

Coming up the Ridge

I just noticed at the top of the ropes that as we neared the summit ridge the mountain dropped off 5000ft on both sides, look ahead, M.A., not down!  We came to the top, to the metal figure of a woman, not a cross, which was further along, and sat down. I was very scared up there.  The views were amazing but I felt very exposed.   Rob wanted me to make it along the narrow snow ridge to the cross on the other summit, but I was unable to do that.  As far as I was concerned, I was on top of the Matterhorn, all we had to do now was get down again and go home!!!!  Thanks Rob!  I will enjoy it all later!

M.A. on the summit of the Matterhorn

MOROCCO, the High and the Low

MOROCCO

Mount Tobkhal and the Jbel Sahro

Nieve Penitente on Toubkhal summit

I went on my own to check out the High Atlas before I lead any treks there as had heard of two fatalities during trekking trips there.  I had Hamish Brown as a friend and mentor, an expert on the High Atlas, and just a mention of his name assured I would not be molested or troubled!  I ascended from Marrakech to Imlil and then to the Neltner Hut, at 3200m.  It was June, and therefore I found snow from the winter still lying, and better still, frozen at night, so that I did not have to fight the scree behind the Hut, I just dug in my crampons and axe and up I went into the hanging valley, the Ikhibi Sud.

Two French lads were coming up behind me, and took this photo as I teetered delicately over these Nieve Penitente (ridges of hard snow ice so name as they lean towards the sun, as they melt, like penitents!) on my crampons.   It was tricky as my ice axe had nowhere to find a hold.  Reaching the top of this mountain,the highest in North Africa (4167m/13,671ft) the views were amazing in all directions.

summit

Ikhibi Sud

After a hard boiled egg and a slurp of water it was off back down to the Hut and then to Marrakech before heading for the Jbel Sahro in the Anti Atlas.

The Jbel SAHRO

In the south of Morocco, pre Sahara Desert, is an area of hard sand, or hamada.  In this wild and empty barren landscape there are wonderful volcanic plugs and dried out wadis, and at night the sky is all stars. We travelled with the Berbers, the hill men of the Atlas, who mostly speak French derived from the time they were colonised by the French, until Indepence in 1956.  Wonderful men, who laugh and sing and love their animals, it was always a pleasure to be with them.