June 2023
The Monte Rosa massif on the Italian side has become quite a pivotal place for me. It was my first destination for Alpine climbing and the first vacation I took with Eline. Having climbed most major peaks here aside from the Lyskamm I had not thought I would return to this place any time soon. However when the idea came up to for a climb with Sten my mind immidiately went to the Lyskamm.
For the last few years I have been working on my project to climb all major peaks around in the Walliser alps and the Lyskamm was one of the last PD+ graded mountains left on my list.
It would be sten’s first climb any mountaion above PD+ was pretty much out of the question so the Lyskamm seemed like a logical choice. As we both had plans for the summer we settled on the end of June to make our attempt.
I was a bit concerned whether it would not be to early in the season, but when I contacted the Quintino Sella hut a week prior the crew there informed me that the conditions where excellent. We seemed to be lucky. Even the weather promised to clear up in the exact days we intended to be there.
We wanted to do the classic Lyskamm traverse from east to west. However due to the lack of availability in the mountain huts on the eastern side we settled on traversing the other way around.
As per usual we made it a mad dash to the top. Leaving Thursday around 5pm to make it to Mullhouse. Rising early the next day to make it all the way to the Quintino Sella hut. Making it to the hut was a bit more stressful then anticipated. I had not realized that the ski lift closed at 1pm. We arrived at Staffal just a little before 1pm and had to pack our stuff in a hurry. In the commotion we managed to lose the sunscreen and my debit card…
Once up the cable car it was clear it was still early in the season. We were only at 2700m and the first patches of snow were right above us. We took a short rest but as it was 800m up to the hut and we would need to cross a lot of slushy snow fields we had to hid the road soon.
We started with an easy hike over a stone trail that quickly turned into a long ascend across snow fields. After the snow fields we could follow the largely snow free rock ridge which was arguably the best part of the hike.
Once in the hut we learnt that breakfast would be served at 4am for the Lyskamm traverse. Goes without saying that the early birds were already up and about around 3:30am. Seriously this early starting in alpining by times loses it’s rationality…
The weather in the morning was pretty amazing and would remain so for the rest of the day. We were lucky to have the exact nice weather weekend of the month. In the weeks before weather was not that great and in the weeks after is promised to be not much better.
The climb across Lyskamm starts with a long and easy hike across the glacier. Once at around 4000m there is a small steeper snow slope after which the terrain goes flat. To climb the Caster one turns west here. The direction from which I came a few year back with Eline when I traversed the Castor with her. Hower now we turned east towards the Lyskamm ridge.
The Lyskamm is an impressive and iconic snowy ridge. The sides look very steep, but are easier to climb than they look. We were not acclimatized so it took us quite some time to push the western summit. From there we had a great view over the ridge and surrounding mountains. From the west summit the eastern summit looks way higher, even though the difference is just about 50 meters or so.
The route between the western and eastern summit is the “Lyskamm traverse” it is the crux of the route. It contains 3 (very) small rock sections but mostly takes you across the icy and razor sharp ridge of the Lyskamm. The views into the depths below you towards both Italy and Switzerland combined with the length of the ridge make this tour a real classic.
There was a good trail across the ridge greatly aiding our climb and allowing us to traverse with relative ease.
Once on the western summit we took a little rest as we knew the hardest part was now behind us. By this time I have seen this region from many different mountain tops, but the views never fail to impress me. Each time I look at the Matterhorn I cannot help but think how I made it to the top of that mountain so many years ago…
The way down even more so than the way up follows the top of the ridge. The going is easy, but if you look back you realize the terrain is quite steep here. Once dow the ridge we had to cross an additional 1km across the glacier to make it to the main route across the glacier. Here it was very busy with people. Literaly hunderds of people were hiking up and down the glacier here, like some 4000m high Disneyland attraction.
The hut on the way back was fully booked so we only took lunch there and took the cable car down to our camping site. Once on the parking place it was hard to imagine that we had actually been here just the day before… We had covered so much distance and seen so much that it felt way longer.
To add even more luck to our day someone had been so nice to stick my debit card to the driver side window of our car! Sten was a burnt due to our lack of sunscreen, but for the rest we made it across without many issues!
Last frontiers on foot 