damian 0 Posted November 20, 2006 Share Posted November 20, 2006 Cripes, an ED ascent and S7 descent. I'll leave this for my 40th birthday. Perhaps 45th. The picture is cut off short and doesn't show what appears to be a very bulged and wide rock band. Hang on, just looking at my guide book: the east ridge (the one on the left in the big pic) is 'only' AD. You literally travel the edge of the ridge up onto the glacier and to the summit. AD is well beyond my technical climbing abilities at the moment. Effort required: a 5 hour, 1500m vert hut climb followed the next day by a 6-7 hour, 1600m vert summit climb. This life, what a pain. Sitting in a nowhere city, working 5 days a week in an office. How are you ever meant to get experience doing great things if all you do is type on the bloody internet. I really wasted my summer, could have been climbing and learning (but alas, I have no one to climb with and am sick and tired of hiring people to do stuff with. Its like renting a hooker). Link to post Share on other sites
SerreChe 2 Posted November 20, 2006 Share Posted November 20, 2006 Quote: Originally posted by db le pu: This life, what a pain. Sitting in a nowhere city, working 5 days a week in an office. How are you ever meant to get experience doing great things of all you do is type on the bloody internet. I really wasted my summer, could have been climbing and learning (but alas, I have no one to climb with and am sick and tired of hiring people to of stuff with. Its like renting a hooker). Mate we're all in the same boat with regards to being gerbils spinning the wheel. One suggestion that I have though with regards to "hooking-up" with people you could go with is to join the local alpine club. In France they have the CAF (Club Alpin Francais). You can join and they organize outings trips for people with various interests and abilities, from novice to hard-core climber. In this way you can meet loads of people, be in larger groups and learn loads from more experienced people along the way. It also happens that they manage most of the mountain huts in the french alps and you get a discount on your stays as well. Link to post Share on other sites
SerreChe 2 Posted November 20, 2006 Share Posted November 20, 2006 Spud, for an AD you will be ok fitness-wise, but technically you will still need somebody to guide you. BTW, as strange as it seems, I have not heard of anybody boarding that line even when doing a Google on it. Link to post Share on other sites
SerreChe 2 Posted November 20, 2006 Share Posted November 20, 2006 Good effort on the topo Spud. I am a bit confused though. Looks like from the pic taken from a distance that you can ride all the way down. Yet on the topo I see that cliff band as well. Funny thing is I would have put the cliff band on the other side from the line by looking at the 2nd pic. The hanging glacier does not seem very well represented as well (I know they change rapidly). Anyway a topo is a topo, but still... As for meeting people, I think yo are being overly hard on yourself. You are social. Rumour has it you caught up with a total stanger from the forum in Rondon! Unless it is purely the language barrier, in that case you need to find a mate who can help you in the club with that. Link to post Share on other sites
damian 0 Posted November 20, 2006 Share Posted November 20, 2006 Yes, I do meet up with some people. He was lucky. OK, the small picture is not the NE face. It is the SE face as viewed from down near Zermatt area. On the map you see the big finger of rock pointing south into the Schali Glacier? It starts on the eastern ridge minor summit marked 4178 and runs down to 2947. In the photo, that feature is the prominent and large rock finger that runs down the shot below the apex summit and into the clouds. Link to post Share on other sites
SerreChe 2 Posted November 20, 2006 Share Posted November 20, 2006 Always nice to meet like-minded peeps. Ah ok gotcha. Thought that was the NE face so was a bit confused. Now it all makes sense. The SE face on the topo from the summit looks all rocks, looks almost rideable on the pic. The NE face line is really sick then. It means you are riding a 1000m meter of exposed 50deg average no fall zone which tends to be covered in blue ice. No wonder it is an S6 that borders the S7. No wonder it is not ridden very often, unless the bottom section fills out and becomes rideable, but unlikely! That one puts the Sock Monkey line in the kiddy stuff section by comparison! Link to post Share on other sites
damian 0 Posted November 20, 2006 Share Posted November 20, 2006 The blue contour lines are glacier. The brown rocky bits on the map are rocks. But don't forget, they get covered by snow in winter ..... and so you have the rocky SE face with snowy couloirs rather than the glaciated NE face with rocks in the ice all covered in snow that wont stick unless its spring, by which time the line will be bombing with rocks and ice falls on warm days. Fun. I reckon the line is harder than S6-S7. I have ridden S5 in difficult conditions - with intermittent white out and the day after an avalanche gutted all the soft snow out of it, making it approach S6. It wasn't nearly as serious as the NE of Weisshorn looks. From your research, which particular ascent route was ED? That seems incredibly high. Is that the rating for the route directly up the nord est ice? The sock monkey line is a relative play ground. It's only problem is avalanche, other than that it really isn't a big deal at all. The terrain itself looks fun and very rideable. The overall seriousness is not that high. Link to post Share on other sites
SerreChe 2 Posted November 21, 2006 Share Posted November 21, 2006 Apparently the NE face was first climbed in 1980! Link to post Share on other sites
SerreChe 2 Posted November 21, 2006 Share Posted November 21, 2006 I like that pic from the last site: Link to post Share on other sites
damian 0 Posted November 21, 2006 Share Posted November 21, 2006 (Regarding “son” and “some” – yes, I saw my spell checker changed my typo into the wrong word. So changed it so that it actually made sense) Anyway, good research mate. Climbing the NE face: Quote: Conditions were perfect. We rarely had to touch rock, and went unroped on good snow and ice. Picture and quote from this excellent Trip Report. Each picture is quite telling and has a text caption. http://ulrichprinz.de/alpin/ch/weisshorn/index.htm An encouraging thing to read. It made me look a bit harder That trip was in July. Obviously April-May would be a different story. Climbing and riding the NE in spring, looking for: - a solid paste of spring snow on the face, not much glacier or rock pocking through. - warm days, clear and cold nights. - climb it from before dusk when its frozen - arrive on the summit (with a headache at 4500m) a little before softened with the day’s warmth. - ride back down before it warms too much. - Might have to abseil the bottom rock band. I’d rather ascend the NE face direct than go via the ridge: - you get to see/feel the condition of the face for several hours. - the ridge looks like a bloody nightmare. I don’t know why I bothered to say half of that. Who am I to talk like this? I apologise to any more experienced guys shaking their heads right now. You have to have the dreams and an ultimate goal. This is the entry point to the NE face. Hmmmm… its on the cards. I've ridden stuff like that before, minus the hanging glacier. In good conditions this will go for sure. If I put in hard work and do some easier peaks for training and experience, this one is a goer. This season or next is even possible if all things line up perfectly. When I say I can’t sit still at work and fidget with my hands constantly, I really mean it. Link to post Share on other sites
SerreChe 2 Posted November 22, 2006 Share Posted November 22, 2006 I noticed that sentence about them being unroped most of the time. They make it sounds like it was not too bad, but seems they had a lot of trouble on the way down the ridge. The pic I posted looks surreal. Which way is up, which way is down? The glacier looks so steep it seems inverted. I agree from the last pic you posted it does not look too bad. Pray for good conditions! Wonder if you can find a guide to take you there !? We all need dreams while we're in the office spinning the wheel! Link to post Share on other sites
damian 0 Posted November 22, 2006 Share Posted November 22, 2006 Quote: The pic I posted looks surreal. Which way is up, which way is down? That’s exactly what I thought. I have been twisting my head around. We know what’s what, but the eyes and mind still play tricks. Quote: I agree from the last pic you posted it does not look too bad Yep, I went to bed thinking that then woke up this morning and first thought I scoffed at myself with a bit of reality check. It might look ok, but that’s only the first 500m of vert which is all above 4000m, NE shadowed and very exposed to wind. In spring it doesn’t soften as the day warms! Even if there is a good layer of snow on the glacier ice, more often than not up there it is horrendously hard and closer to white ice than snow and that stuff isn’t gentle on the thighs nor accommodating to the snowboard edge. And that’s on (minimum) 7 hour old legs after a mega face climb with board on back and then dropping in from a thinner oxygen level (4500m). All after the previous day’s 6 hour hike up to the peak hut. Reality is different to photograph. Now this all totally within reach of a determined person, but it would take serious hard work on the day and also for months of training. Quote: Wonder if you can find a guide to take you there !? Yes, maybe, but I doubt any of the guides I know will do it. However the next best thing is quite possible: I have sent an email to a guide asking if he would help with several training peaks this season, with something like this as the ultimate goal in 2008 spring. I know a couple of excellent guides who are pretty adventurous and nice guys. But they are all busy with their own businesses, including weeklong freeride camps along with trying to get people together for guided heli trips to various remote parts of the world. Sure, that stuff is fun, but not what I want to do. Where’s the benefit in just having fun and what do you learn in a heli? Quote: We all need dreams while we're in the office spinning the wheel! …so long as you live the dream in the end. Link to post Share on other sites
SerreChe 2 Posted November 23, 2006 Share Posted November 23, 2006 Practice, Practice, Practice... If you fall and cannot self arrest, then it's not looking good, esp. on a snowbard. Better be hugging that ice axe. Link to post Share on other sites
damian 0 Posted November 24, 2006 Share Posted November 24, 2006 >Practice, Practice, Practice... If I quit my job in December can you give me one in Tokyo next July? Link to post Share on other sites
SerreChe 2 Posted November 24, 2006 Share Posted November 24, 2006 Never know Spud. Keep me posted on that front. Link to post Share on other sites
damian 0 Posted November 25, 2006 Share Posted November 25, 2006 I will keep you posted. Although, benefits prevent me from rationally quitting work for the season. Link to post Share on other sites
bushpig 0 Posted November 30, 2006 Share Posted November 30, 2006 Oi! You were giving me shit for that very same rationing and logic! Link to post Share on other sites
Zaoman 0 Posted December 2, 2006 Share Posted December 2, 2006 Those are some wicked pictures. Link to post Share on other sites
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