Page 5 - 1998 AMA Summer

Ten Steps Across the Monte Rosa Massif
ByMaj WillManners
Having spent a very pleasant After the initial shock of the 10 days climbing in the price of a one way ticket to the Chamonix area, (mainly rocSktockhorn, we boarded the climbing due to the tropical
Simon Weatherall leading on steep ground on the start of the Citta di Galarot
conditions), it was time to head to Switzerland for JSAM. Before the arrival brief, (be in time or be skint!), I squeezed in a day in paradise, climbing the Lenspitze and the Nadelhorn from Saas Fee; probably one of my most enjoyable moun­ taineering days ever. I made it to the campsite in Tasch where a small community of Quasars was multiplying rapidly. This was to be my first JSAM, despite having been a member of the AMA for over 10 years. Poor show really.
After initial forays into the hills, a small party was taking shape in Camp Quasar. Pete Aldwinkle had started canvass­ ing support for a traverse of the M onte Rosa Massif. Eventually he pulled together a group of 5 who proceeded to spend the evening totally underestimating the scale and im plications of the selected route. In fact another couple of bottles of beer saw us ready for a Karrimor Mountain M arathon style skip along the ridge top in time to return for tea and medals. The route needed little discussion as far as we were concerned; start at one end and finish at the other end when all the 4000 metre peaks in the way have been climbed! Pretty simple really. Having decided that the hardest section of the route offered little more than D- climbing we opted for the lightweight approach. In addition to bivvy kit we had two 9 m illim etre ropes, half a dozen assorted nuts and a few slings, more than enough. Needless to say like the average Brit in the Alps all the emergency kit went in, sleeping bags and a few ‘just in case’ items. We scrutinized the contents of every sack, com­ pared weight, axes, straps, creams and had another bottle of beer.
train much to the amusement
of other passengers who clearly
had not seen men with beards
and rucsacks before. Several
stops would see us transformed
from being side show freaks in
the busy streets of Zermatt to
glacial gladiators ready to face
the hidden terrors of the Stock-
horn Glacier! Imagine our sur­
prise then when on closer
inspection by Simon Weather-
all, the guidebook revealed that
our easiest route of ascent up
our first peak was a 700 metre
TD-/V mixed!! Astheone instrumental for our super lightweight rack I took an
unfair proportion of the abusejC ^r^ Pete kept quiet! (I owed him . "* one!!) W ith an already expired
one way ticket our only way
was up, or more specifically
across to the spectacular bivvy
“Citta di Galarote” perched on '
a badly managed slag heap on
an unfeasibly narrow ridge at
3970 metres. It was in fact one
of the best bivvy huts I’ve ever
stayed in. No larger than a
camper van it provided beds
for 8 and a hut log that made
very interesting reading. We
read of the first ascent of our
chosen route and of the visit by
Royal Engineer climbers some
years previously Interestingly
there were no entries in the log
since spring!
In the morning Pete, who had been suffering with the alti­ tude, (on account of the fact that the rest of us were well acclimatized and had been unkindly beasting him along) made the very sensible and “Oates” like decision to descend. The intrepid Andy Longman and Matty Wells (of M ount Kenya’s Ice W indow fame - “hey are you THE Andy Longman and Matty Wells?”) took the lead and set off up the “Cresta di Santa
/
Army Mountaineer
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