Zinalrothorn

September 2020

Ever since my failed attempt to climb the Ober Gabel horn I wanted to get my revenge and climb the Zinal Rothorn instead. As the Zinal Rothorn is not really beginners peak it had taken me some time to find someone willing to take it on. Lucky enough I had found Rianne who was, despite off having no alpine experience whatsoever, more than willing to give this mountain a shot.

We had quite an ambitious schedule. We were to immediately climb to the Rothorn hutte from Zermatt. Make camp there and climb the Zinal Rothorn the day after. In an even more ambitious plan we wanted to climb the Ober Gabelhorn the next day. But as we were climbing up we already knew this was not going to happen. Riannes backpack was quite heavy and the 1500 vertical meters that she had to climb in a short afternoon were no joke.

The weather didn’t really lift our mood either. It wasn’t bad, but it certainly wasn’t great. We had monitored the forecast closely the days before so we knew tomorrow should be good, but still. The day after tomorrow would be worse so Ober Gablehorn really seemed out of the question.

Once we finally got to the Rothornhutte we continued for another 300 meters and camped on the only flat rock we could find. Once we had set up camp it was already getting dark. We lay down in the tent to rest a bit before supper. It was misty outside, so I did not even bother to look outside much. It would only make me anxious about the weather tomorrow. The drizzle and clouds made it hard to believe that tomorrow would be a good day.

Well… What do you know. It was a good day. Never should have doubt the holy forecast. When I looked outside the tent I saw clear skies with bright twinkling stars. I already could see torches flashing next to our campsite on the glacier. People had already started their ascent. When I saw the people already climbing I immediately felt behind of schedule. I started to rush on my gear and quickly stuffed some food adjacent breakfast in my mouth. Rianna was a little less in a hurry and looked a bit shocked having to wake this early.

Me rushing and Rianna taking more her times turned out to be the theme of the first 4 hours of the climb. I saw us lagging further and further behind as it was getting lighter and lighter.

We climbed via the ice to a weakness in the rock. The weakness consisted out of a narrow crack through which we could climb from the glacier onto the rock. This first stretch of rock was way steeper than you would expect when you just started climbing 10 minutes ago.

We were just 20 minutes on the rock and we already were losing our way. It was still quite dark and in the rock previous climbers leave few traces. We had the choice between following steep rock to the left of us, which seemed to be the way the trail had been going till then. Or take the fain slope right of us. We started with the rock left, but this was really quite steep and it did not look like it wast getting any better any time soon. It even looked like you would get blocked within 100 meters. We therefore chose the route on our right.

We followed this route without finding any trace that people had went there before. That was not a great. sign. Luckily it was getting lighter and we could see a faint track about 200 meters south of us. It seemed like we took the wrong route but that it worked out any way. We followed the track over the snowfield and then climbed 20 meters steep up to a ridge. We could follow this ridge all the way to the foot of the Zinalrothorn so our navigation challenges were over for the time being..

The other groups were now way ahead of us. Since the going was now easy and straightforward over a modest stone slope and later a broad snow ridge I tried to make some haste and make up for some of the time we had lost. Rianne was however still getting accustomed to the height and as it was her first climb needed some more time. I was getting concerned we might not make the top that day.

Slowly but steadily we made it to the foot of the Zinalrothorn proper anyway. The rocky top looked intimidating. We could see other groups climbing the mountain. I took my time to see where people were and how the route would go. The first part seemed obvious. We would need to climb left of the main ridge and then climb up via the obvious gully left of the main peak. But from there on it seemed less obvious. Hopefully the backside of the mountain would look better then what I could see from here.

We stepped of the snow and started the actual climb itself. The first part was not as exposed as the top later on, but trickier than it looked. There was a lot of loose snow and mixed terrain that was not all too sturdy. We would need to be careful on the way down.

Along this ridge Rianna had a last moment of doubt. I said ‘let’s just return then and get this over with’. We stood there for a while and then she said, ‘No I want to continue’. At that moment it was like she started to transform into another person. She got quicker every 10 minutes. She was finally starting to have fun climbing. Once the 60 degrees rock slopes started she was really enjoying herself. Her mood seemed to be directly correlated to the steepness of the rock.

The way through the gully was quite easy. Once on top we felt we had already achieved quite some stuff. But it was only here that the really exposed part of the climb started. The first part was a stretch of 70 degree rock. Though steep it was easy to climb. It was the horizontal traverse along a steep and smooth rock face after this stretch that formed the real crux. It was just 30 meters or so, but there were not many places where you could set your feet or place your hand. And the things you could grab pointed downward instead of upward. I was already dreading the fact that I needed to climb down from here as well.

We met the last people we would see that day right after this traverse. We had started relatively late and had been quite slow. I didn’t like it as it is safer to climb with other groups nearby, on the other hand it was quite cool to have the mountain for ourselves all this time.

The climb continued with a long and steep ascend to the final ridge. Once on the ridge we simply had to follow it till the top. The rigde was extremely exposed, but with a head for heights not particularly difficult.

The ridge was by far the most beautiful part of the route and I could not get enough of it. I kept using my go pro, this costed us even more time. It was now the time that we should return. But with the top less then 15 minutes away we pressed on.

On the last section of the ridge we encountered a large rock. We crawled under it via it’s left side. The route seemed to be blocked at this point. There was a rope hanging right next to us. It seemed to suggest that we had to use it to climb straight up. You would however need to trust that rope completely as there was nothing below it for 200 vertical meters. We decided to also check the other side of the rock and crawled down. The other side was however not at all feasible. We thought for a brief moment about heading back, but then crawled along the left side again and climbed the rope.

Once we did that path to the top lay clear. It was a straightforeward, maybe even easy climb to the top itself. Once on top we celebrated and ate a bar. The view was amazing and it felt like a good revanche on my failed attempt of the Ober Gable horn right next to us. I was proud that we were on top even though it had seemed unlikly at many points of the day.

We took our time to get down. We already achieved what we were going for, now it was just a matter of not making any mistakes. The route via the ridge was just as easy down as up. For the descend from the ridge there were ample anchors to abseil from. All the while however I knew that we still needed to make it safely through the crux.

Rianne was still in an exceptional good mood when compared to the morning and was lead climbing the crux. I followed her. It was ok, but I was glad we passed it. We descended toward the gully. This point marked the end of the exposed climb and I lost a bit of my focus and started to climb a bit more on the cruise control.

We went down slowly but steadily, at this point I knew we had to be careful not to take too many wrong turns as otherwise we might not get back to the tent before dusk.

There was now only the mixed section to go in order to get back to the broad snow ridge from on where climb would become more like a strenuous hike. The snow had metled and we really needed to be careful. Rianna even made a fall just 200 meters or so before we would get to the snow ridge. Luckily the snow on which she fell was not too steep and I had her firmly on the rope.

Once safely on the ride we took another break. Whether we would reach the tent before dusk I did not know, but we had made the top and had gotten down safely, so it had been a success anyway. Once of the snow ridge we started the long descend back towards the tent. We did just the thing that we should not do and took a wrong turn. At this point I was sure that the sun would have set by the time we made it to the tent.

We climbed further down and discovered in the light that we had indeed taken the wrong path that morning. The trail indeed traversed the steep rock. In the light you could see that, though steep, there were just about enough weak spots to make up for easy going.

At last we got eye on the ice fields below us. We would need to find that gully again via which we could climb down. Though just 20 meters below us this last section consisted of vertical cliffs and there was no way to get down aside from that one gully. We found the gully, but once we started to go down, it seemed steeper then we remembered. We climbed back and deliberated a bit. We scouted the surrounding and tried a few other spots. But other spots seemed to be just as bad or worse. We checked our GPS. The GPS indeed indicated this point. With the sun setting on us we decided to just fix the rope and hope for the best. When abseiling we realized that this had indeed been the location. In the dark we just hadn’t noticed that is was freakishly steep for this stage of the climb.

As we hiked down over the ice fields to our tent we saw the tent slowly disappearing in the darkness. We were tired and my toilet break was way over due. We cooked some dinner on our stove and went to sleep satisfied with our accomplishment.