How to get there:
The nearest town is Ponteresina near St. Moritz
in south east Switzerland. Good train connections. Route description:
One proceeds by car or train from Ponteresina to
the big gondola that brings you up to a rather large mountain
hut near the base of Piz Palü A good place to spend the
night.
The next (early) morning one follows the trail passing to the left
of the nearest little top and eventually descending down to
the glacier below the east summit. From here the hike up the ice-fall
is quite spectacular with often large crevasses. On reaches
the saddle on the shoulder east of the east summit (see picture).
From here one literally follows the Swiss Italian border.
From there one climbs with crampons to the East summit. Descending
into the saddle and follows a rather narrow, exposed snow ridge
to the middle and highest top of Piz Palü. If weather
permits one can continue the traverse across the West
summit and return another way. Comments:
My climb together with a Swiss guide from Ponteresina turned
quite scary. The forecast called for possible thunder around noon.
It was overcast the entire way, but when lightning struck essentially
at the very summit, just as we set foot on it at 8 am, and ice axes
starting buzzzing rather loudly, I can just tell that there were
two guys that RAN down the narrow ridge that we so carefully had
climbed up a few minutes earlier. Lightning continued while we raced back to
the hut, setting a new record time for the distance. The storm turned
in to one of the worst in a long time causing numerous deaths in Italy
and a considerable snowfall all the way down in Ponteresina, this was
mid June!
