Finsteraarhorn, Switzerland

Early rising before dawn, today was going to be a long day, Bryon and Chris had made it eventually, with great tales of an epic day. We would see them later, but they were off back to the car to-day.
Sue would not be with us today and chose to stay at the hut. The climb was very direct up to the ridge then a scramble to the summit, but is quite a height gain.
In the dark we climbed up the gulley behind the hut and onto the glacier. Ascending across this, it passes through a notch in the SW ridge.


On the other side of this ridge it heads straight up to the Gabel notch on the main back of the mountain.

The notch was extremely windy, and you have those doubts about continuing, but the ridge did not look very serious.. just a scramble, and this pushed away any doubts.

It was not complex and we were soon at the summit, along with a string of others we had been following all day. We were all pretty tired and one picture says it all... Dave has just told Christine that there was no "easy" way down and she had to go back the way we had come. Along side this my other residing memory is of Phil sparking up and casually smoking a roll- up as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened and he was out for a stroll in the park.
The descent was fairly simple in contrast, as we let gravity take the strain. We were soon back in the hut an ready for rehydration, rest, and food ... dinner would be a while.