| Lenzspitze: North-east face Trip Report |
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| Lenzspitze: North-east face   | 
| Page Type: Trip Report Location: Valais, Switzerland, Europe Lat/Lon: 46.10460°N / 7.86850°E Date Climbed/Hiked: Jul 28, 1997 | Page By: tor Created/Edited: Apr 2, 2003 / Object ID: 168875 Hits: 1211 Loading... Page Score: 85.06% - 1 Votes Loading... Vote: Log in to vote |
Lenzspitze (4294m) -- North-East Face
D -- 950m from Mischabel hut -- 4 to 6 hrs estimated
“Classic ice face with sections of 55 degrees”
Nadelhorn (4327m) -- Southern Nadelgrat
AD -- traverse from Lenzspitze -- 2 to 3 hrs estimated
“An exposed alpine ridge with some rock to III”
7/28 -- 7/29/97 Susan & Tor
After sleeping late (we got home pretty late from Barcelona), we checked the weather which looked good and made reservations at the Mischabel hut out of the Saas Fee valley. With Susan’s super driving of our car without brake lights, we got to Saas Fee in about 2 hours (uninjured but shaken) and took the Hannegg telepherique up to about 2200m. Started hiking around 2pm and got up to the hut (3300m) around 4pm. We had hiked up in shorts, t-shirts, and sneakers as our feet still hurt from all the walking around Spain. After checking in, we put on heavier clothes and boots and headed up the rocky ridge to look at the beginning of the route. The approach followed the ridge for one to two hundred meters and then cut off across the glacier towards the north-east face. Looked pretty steep from our angle.
We ate dinner next to a nice pair of young German climbers on one side and a father and son from Holland who had walked up from Saas Grund. Have talked mostly with the Dutch couple who were great but it was strange because they made many negative comments about Germans -- I guess there is a lot of history around here. Got to bed early (early by real people standards, i.e. 9pm) with plans to get up at 3am for breakfast. The hut keepers looked and acted like grandparents -- “don’t worry, we’ll wake you around 3am for breakfast if the weather looks good”. We managed to get up on our own (along with about 15 other people) -- it was cold and clear. We started the approach using headlamps at about 3:30am -- we had been the first people headed out that hour and when we roped up at the glacier, we met Stefan (a mathmetician from Zurich -- not the guide) who was planning to solo the route. He asked if he could join us for the approach but we were too slow getting our stuff together and the snow was solid so he took off.
When we headed off we met another group of three headed for the easy route up the Nadelhorn -- the guide and clients were all from Wales -- Tor made the mistake of calling them British! The approach to the bergshrund went quickly although we needed headlamps most of the way. We arrived just before Stefan but he passed us while we were getting our gear out. Headed up the face at about 5am -- it was easy (hard) snow at the bottom and roughly 50 degrees -- we were separated by roughly 8m for the start with the thought that we would separate further if we needed to start placing gear.
The climb was great -- big open concave face that started at about 50 degrees and got steeper as we climbed with maybe 60 degrees at the top. The length was about 500m. We stayed on the right side of the face following Stefan and a party who had probably started an hour ahead of us. Tor tried to convince Susan to head further left to come out directly on the summit but ... At the top, there was only a few inches of snow over the ice but there was 3 or 4 inches of air and rotten ice under the snow before we found solid ice. Thus, the climbing got slower up higher. Probably we should have set up a belay for the last section, but both of felt pretty solid so we kept going without gear although moving slowly and carefully.
Got to the ridge and climbed about 30m to the top. We arrived at about 7:30am and then headed back along the ridge towards the Nadelhorn. At the beginning, the ridge was mostly snow and ice with some rock but very narrow and sheer. After a few hundred meters, it was mostly rock with some snow between. We stayed about 8m apart and kept our crampons on during the climb. The hardest stuff was supposed to be 5.4 but felt easier. Ended up having to do two rappels off of short towers as we crossed the ridge. At the second, we met Stefan waiting for us (he had been able to climb around the first but was worried about the second) -- he had been waiting about 30 minutes and was pretty cold. Unfortunately, high clouds had blown in and the wind was really cold on the ridge -- had a great view of the Matterhorn with it top cloud shrouded.
It was lots of fun climbing in crampons -- again the climbing was easy and we put in occasional pieces of gear to protect our running belay. We got to the top of the Nadelhorn around 10:30am talked with Stefan, took pictures, and talked with the party that had been behind us. Headed down the North-east ridge of the Nadelhorn -- easy going. Got back to the hut in about 2 hours at 12:30. There Stefan bought us a beer and we talked with a couple of young Swiss-German climbers before heading back down to Saas Fee.
We got down to Saas Fee around 4pm, after a 7500 foot descent (it took us longer to descend from the hut to Hannegg than it took to walk up), and started looking for a hotel. The tourist info gave a few -- Susan picked the one with a sauna. We spent 20 minutes looking for it -- a 3 star hotel at 140 CHF for two called the Happy Lodge. Finally, figured out that it was now called the Alps Inn and catered to snowboarders -- the place was a wreck! Headed back to the tourist office and found the Domino hotel (nearby thankgod). Dumped our stuff, showered, and had an enormous meal at the Spagetteria complete with Sambuca (thanks Peter) at the end.
We had decided to head up to the Breithorn again the next day, but because the approach was so easy (30 minutes from the telepherique) we did a short hike in Saas Fee (the Carl Dickmayer memorial Vanderveg) and then went to the Saas Fee baths/saunas. It cost 12 CHF/person and the tubs were cold (well maybe luke warm) -- bad idea. After buying lunch at the grocery store, we headed off at about 2:30pm for Zermatt.
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Pennine Alps
