Summer Alpine Programme 2024 Round Up, Part 1: Discover Alpine Mountaineering
This year’s Summer Alpine programme was a great success, and we’re taking the chance to look back, reflect, and celebrate everyone’s alpine mountaineering achievements.
We’ll start with a big thank you to all of our clients who joined us this summer, both those we had met previously and those who were new to us. Everyone worked hard with many big days in the mountains and early starts. It’s a real team effort when working together in the mountains and everyone was very receptive to the new skills, and performed well when putting the new skills to use on alpine climbs and summits. It is a real pleasure being part of your learning journey and your alpine mountaineering achievements. In part one of our programme round up, we’re starting with the Discover Alpine Mountaineering courses which kicked things off in mid-June.
Following a very snowy spring and cool temperatures, the mountains were in good condition with snow where it was needed most. This makes the mountains easier and safer to operate in, with most crevasses well covered with snow and freezing conditions minimising loose rock, which can both be problems. Also the mountains look better with lots of snow on them, so they all looked amazing and with the our valley base surrounded by many 4000m peaks, there’s lots of great views and impressive peaks to look at.
A big thank you to our base out in Switzerland, the Pension Henio. Here we were all looked after every step of the way, with flexibility and understanding of our alpine programme, the guesthouse is a real asset to our courses and superb place to stay and relax after being in the mountains.
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Discover Alpine Mountaineering – Round 1
A few days after our team arrived and a day before our first courses commenced, there was unfortunately an exceptional storm one evening that wiped out the power to both Saas Fee and Zermatt valleys and produced several landslides that damaged the road in and out of the village. This did stop access, and required a big operation to get the road open over the following few days. Given the situation we were very impressed with everyone’s patience, understanding and efforts getting to our first course on time. We had to alter the plan, but were able to do so without reducing the course content or goals.
Day 1
It was quite a challenge at first with the village in crisis management and travel limited. We started with an overview of essential alpine equipment, and sorted any that needed to be loaned. While we were slowly finding out more on the landslide situation, we practiced some alpine rope work and an intro to crevasse rescue at our guesthouse base. In the afternoon we were able to get up to Saas Fee, where we went rock climbing. This is a great foundation skill, not just rock-climbing movement, but rope skills and belaying too. All of which is good practice and contributes to the building blocks and skillsets required for going mountaineering.
Day 2
The next day more details became available about the landslide but unfortunately, we couldn’t leave the valley, so we made an alternative plan for our intended hut trip and alpine summit. The new plan was to stay at the Britannia hut and climb the Allalinhorn on day 3 (4027m). The Britannia hut has relatively easy access from the cable car, so on the way to the hut we practiced some glacier travel and more crampon technique, which would be used on the Allalinhorn.
Pic 2: Glacier travel practice on the way to the Britannia hut
Staying in the hut was a new experience for many, and everyone had a fun evening. People are often pleasantly surprised with the quality and scale of the alpine huts. Many can be like mini hotels in the middle of mountains, nearly always a shared bunk room style but with duvet blankets and great food served in the evenings. All huts vary and have different character, which makes your mountain journey more interesting.
Day 3
The next day saw an Alpine start, with breakfast at the hut and a walk back to the lift station where we planned to take the funicular to the top station Mittelallalin (3457m).
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This wasn’t our intended plan, but with a strong team and limited options it was a great objective. Everyone loved the glacier panorama and the opportunity to climb a 4000m peak. The plan was to ascend and descend the normal route, often people’s first 4000m summit. Due to the lift access the vertical height gain isn’t too much (around 600m), however you are operating at altitude so it isn’t without some challenge, especially for a first experience.
The day was an opportunity for everyone to experience glacier travel for real, and continuous movement with ice axe and crampons. The team worked well together and soon we were on the summit, and their first 4000m peak. Summit success for everyone and new independent alpine skills learnt along the way: everything we hope for on our 3 day Discover Alpine Mountaineering course! Everyone did so well, and it was great to see a few days later that friends from the course had been out and climbed another 4000m peak independently. It’s rewarding to see the course working and helping support people on their alpine mountaineering journey.
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Discover Alpine Mountaineering – Round 2
With the road to Saas Grund back open and major repairs underway, the second Discover Alpine Mountaineering started easily in comparison, and we were able to run our intended itinerary.
Day 1
The course began with a day near the Weissmies hut and included an intro to alpine ropework, equipment and planning. It was a great opportunity to practice the basics of crevasse rescue and alpine ropework. We also checked over any specific equipment such as ice axes and crampons. As it was early in the season there was some good snow patches near the hut ideal for crampon practice and movement on snow. We then were able to make our way round to the Glacier de Moiry and Cabane de Moiry the next day.
Day 2
The cabane de Moiry is a justifiably popular hut in a superb location overlooking a glacier and surrounded by alpine peaks. In particular, Pigne de la Le and Points du Mourti are the two most climbed mountains in this area. Both are quite accessible peaks and a good introduction to alpine mountaineering, with a glacial approach and a rock ridge summit. The Pigne de la Le is most commonly traversed by ascending its North ridge from the Col du Pigne, and descending the glacier to the south back towards the hut (normal route). While the Points du Mourti can be traversed, it is more common to ascend and descend the same way – the Northeast ridge from above the glacier starting at around 3273m.
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The snowy approach to the hut this early summer did provide some interest and was an excellent introduction to the alpine environment. The hut is very modern and as for folks on the previous course, it was the first time staying at a mountain hut for many. With comfortable beds, duvet blankets and excellent food the hut was an ideal example. The hut sits at 2826m and the summit for the next day was 3396m, so reasonable altitude but not too much vertical height gain to the summit. This allows for plenty of time and opportunity for teaching along the way too. Later that day and after some rest, the team practiced more crevasse rescue rope techniques outside the hut before dinner.
Day 3
We had an early alpine start the next day with breakfast around 04:30am. The ascent starts with a snow field up to the Col du Pigne, and from there it’s a rock ridge, mainly scrambling to the small summit snow ridge. It’s a fairly broken ridge with plenty of ledges between the scrambling sections. This makes it an ideal introduction and good for teaching aspects of alpine rope work and systems, such as short pitches, long pitch, carrying the rope and moving together.
Pic 2: Glacial descent with Pointes de Mourti (3564m) in the background
After about 3 hours from the hut we arrived on the summit, with amazing views of the Zermatt 4000m mountains right in front of us, including the Matterhorn. Both teams arrived on the summit around the same time, in superb weather. It was great to see everyone do so well and success all round! We then had to descend the glacier to the south and loop back around to the start of the glacier near the hut. All this went smoothly, and we were back at the hut for lunch.
The ascent of the Pigne de la Le (3396m) was an excellent introduction to climbing an alpine peak and a great opportunity to put everything learnt the previous two days into practice.
Pic 2: View from the descent, looking towards the Ober Gabelhorn (4063m) and Matterhorn (4478m)
After both 3-day Discover Alpine Mountaineering courses, some folks stayed on and climbed further alpine peaks independently, including the Breithorn and Weissmies. Others started making plans for later that summer or for next year, which we look forward to hearing all about! Well done everyone who attended our Discover Alpine Mountaineering courses, thank you and good luck with your future alpine mountain adventures!
Find out more about our 2025 Alpine programme
About Stuart McAleese
“Originally from Northern Cumbria I started out hill walking in the Lake District when I was at school. I soon become interested in rock climbing and mountaineering, and was lucky enough to work and climb with Mountain Guides during my first job leaving school. Since then I’ve been working full time in the mountains for around 25 years.
At the same time as working, I enjoy climbing in my free time and have been lucky enough to go on many expeditions around the world, climbing new mountains, first ascents and tough remote summits. Places such as Patagonia, Alaska, Himalaya, Peru, Baffin Island, Yosemite and China. In 2004 I was nominated for the prestigious Piolet d’Or in Grenoble, France, for a 1st ascent of the ‘Supa Dupa Couloir’ in Alaska.
I love my job as a Mountain Guide, teaching and exploring big mountains in all weather all year round. I joined the Glenmore Lodge team in 2019 and head up the Summer Alpine programme as well as delivering on the Rock & Mountain programme of training courses”.