How to get there:
A good starting point is the village of Zinal in
the Annivers valley. This is west of the valley leading
in to the famous Zermatt in Switzerland. Route description:
The climb involves a considerable vertical gain
(Zinal is at approx 1650 m) and is
best done by hiking to the SAC (Swiss Alpine Club) hut Tracuit (at 3256 m), spending
the night there for an early climb of the summit the next morning.
The hut can accommodate about 100 people and serves meals and sells
various articles.
From the hut the climb is entirely on the glacier. The standard route
proceeds across the Turtmann Glacier (in a south-south-east direction) crossing
a couple of minor crevasses, as one get closer to the rock on the eastern side
the route heads pretty much straight up the glacier arm that essentially extends
to the very summit. The climb ends with a very short ridge in a more south-west
direction (the only place when one senses a mountain ridge) to the snow covered
summit. Comments:
This is technically one of the easiest 4000 m summits in the Alps.
The mountain is a part of the Weisshorn massive, but with a 120 m
vertical drop between it and the higher Weisshorn (4505 m) it is
generally accepted as a separate 4000 meter summit.
We had fog and light snow flurries on the summit, very poor
visibility. In fact, the weather did improve, but not until after
noon during our decent from Tracuit to Zinal.