John, Harvey, Andy and I have been based out of the Hosaas Hut above Saas Grund the last couple of days. We drove early on Friday morning from Saint Gervais with the hope of good weather and the intention of climbing Weismies. There had been heavy snow overnight and at 3450 metres on the peak we retreated due to poor visibility and dangerous snow conditons. We did however have a great afternoon on the glacier practising, crevasse rescue, prusiking and ice climbing skills.
Today, we traversed the Lagginhorn (4010m). This very long ridge route is AD in standard and begins by climbing the South Ridge before traversing between point 3906m and the true summit and finishes by descending the normal route. The route is easiest when the rock is dry. At the moment, due to the recent poor weather, there is a lot of snow around and we climbed a large percentage of the route in crampons. These conditions did however, give us a brilliant mixed route and a great finale to the week.
