We climbed up the glacier in the dark - a circuitous route that followed the ridge line coming down from the north.
We reached the Bishorn summit as it started getting light. I had been here before over 10 years ago, but the weather had been very poor, and it was good to see it properly for the first time.
From here the ridge curved around SSW then S and finally E in a big C shape.
the next section was to go over a snow dome and down a snow ridge to a col. This would be the last time we would be on anything resembling ground more than 30 cms wide until we hit the glacier on the other side.
The route followed the ridge line and quickly turned into a scramble.There were a number of smaller gendarmes leading up to the grand Gendarme sticking prominently up from the ridge.
This initial section had a couple of points where getting up the steps was not too difficult, but required an abseil on the other side.
For most of this initial line I was much more concerned with keeping going and tackling the difficulties as they come along.
As we came to the base of the grand gendarme there was a little more "proper" climbing, and we had to pitch the sections rather than move together.Looking back showed the complexities we had already overcome.
From the collar of the grand gendarme we traversed around below the scorpions tail like structure. from here we dropped down to the col that leads to the summit ... the main climbing difficulties were over, but there was many others yet to come.
From here the route changes and now became a steep snow ridge so we changed over from rock kit to snow equipment - Crampons and ice axe .
Up the ridge there looked like another gendarme, but this could be escaped round the side.Then it was up the steep ridge in several zigzags..
Eventually we go to the summit ... several bumps, but the largest one had a cross on it, and enough room for both of us to sit and admire the views down all the sides
We paused for quite a while at the top admiring the views and taking in the magnificence all around. Bryon and Steve were still climbing up, and once we could see they were not far behind we set of down the NE ridge ( the normal ascent route). this was initially a steep snow arête, before it turned in to a sharp boulder ridge, with no real defined path, but just follow the general direction down.
At the bottom of the ridge we caught up with the stragglers who had been attempting the normal route up, crossing the glacier and cutting down the other side we picked up the path to the Weisshorn hutte.
Looking back up the route you could see the whole of the NE ridge leading to the summit.Dave and I waited at the hut for Bryon and Steve, lying in the sun and having a little snooze.
The original plan was to crash at the hut and head down the next day .... however the sun got to Dave's head and he had been counting days. He had worked out that if we dropped down today, we could get the car tomorrow and then he could pop over to Italy and grab the Italian ridge of the Matterhorn before they had to go home. (This would not work with me as I had to catch a flight).
So once Bryon and Steve caught up and had a few moments rest and around the time we would have booked into the hut for the night, we headed down .. this must have looked really odd to the guardian, who I presume had expected us to stay (I hope he had not cooked extra food to the dinner). The descent was much longer than any of us had anticipated, but the path ground down the slope through the meadows then the woods and eventually rolled out into the valley.
It was close to 11pm and we were concerned about closing time ... we headed over to the nearest town and hoped the bar was open ... we eventually found a bar, and managed a quick "gross bier".
This had the effect of bringing the whole day into perspective as we looked back at what we had achieved. the final mile was really tough the rucksacs heavy and the legs leaden we made it back tot eh tents and crashed.