Dufour Spitze

July 2021

I was looking for an easy, but not too easy mountain to climb with Eefke and my sister. The Dufour felt like the logical choice. It would be hard to climb unaclimitized, but since we managed to scale Mont Blanc pretty much directly from sea level a few years earlier, I felt bold enough. Though I must admit the 1800m ascend sounded not exactly appealing. The Dufour spitze promised a fun climb with good views. At the same time we could finally test Eefkes aclimatization speed. Eefke had been joining treks for quite some years now, but never had gone up very quickly or gone higher then 5000 meters.

The Dufour spitze was also meant as a nice warm up for the expedition over the Khumby ice cols that Roos and I had planned for the next month.

Unfortunately Eefke got really ill in the night, so till this date she keeps us in suspense about her high altitude capabilities… It was quite a bummer as I really hoped to climb this mountain with her, but as we needed to leave around 3am and she was vomiting all out at 12am it was simply out of the question. Her illness was probably due to the unpurified water that we overconfidentely drank the evening before. The whole situation gave me a real flash back to my trek with her in Khumbu many years before….

We took the normal route up. The route consists of more or less three stages. Stage one is an easy climb over the rock behind the hut. An easy climb in which pretty much everyone gets lost. The rock is thusly easy that there are multiple ways up and there are not many marks. So basically everyone scrambles up in the dark and just hopes for the best. The key point is to just stay on the rock and climb up till you have a very clear indication that you need to leave the rock and go further on the snow.

Stage 2 is an aredeous but very easy climb over the glacier. Most of the 1800m climb is actually over this glacier and since we climbed this mountain unacclimatized this was the heaviest section. The ease of the terrain is turned against you as your rapid ascend weighs heavy on your longs.

Once you are about 150m under the top the final section begins. This section is by far the most interesting. A semi-steep snow slope brings you to the ridge. You need to climb a few hundred meters over this rocky ridge till you reach the top. The climbing is rather exposed but not so difficult.

The skies were clear and we enjoyed amazing views. It was exceptionally cold however. When I just got to the ridge I immediately felt like my gloves were not adequate. I felt the feeling in my fingers dwindling and thought about returning. Luckily Roos had Eefkes pair of gloves with her. Eefkes gloves were a lot warmer so I could continue. Roos however still had poor gloves and had to stuff them under her jacket every now and then to make sure they did not freeze.

Aside from the constant battle against the cold, it was a very enjoyable climb to the top. We sat on the top for a couple of minutes trying to hide a bit from the wind eating a Snickers. We climbed back the same way, even though most people take the abseil route down the east side of the mountain. Once of the ridge the cold was gone immediately and we started a sweaty descend back to the Monta Rosa hutte.

Once back in the hut it turned out we had everyone worried. Normally people return from the Monta Rosa at around 12 or 1 in the afternoon. But we, slow pokes that we were, arrived at around 3 to 4pm. Roos would have been able to make 12, but acclimatized this was really the best time my lungs could deliver.