Climb every mountain...

 

First I must start this post with an earnest apology.  I have been very remiss in not updating the blog with the numerous adventures that we have had in the last five months.  I promise I will begin again.  This adventure, however, was one I had to write about immediately. 

Now that we have returned from the States, we committed to start climbing.  That is one of the main reasons that we came here!  Tom and Nicole were signed up for a climbing camp in June, but it was cancelled due to avalanche conditions.  We found our own guide, Jonas Lambrigger, and embarked to Zermatt to climb the Breithorn this week.  Breithorn is a peak in the Alps, 4164 meters tall (that's 13,661 feet to us) which is easily reached and within the capabilities of a child with the right spirit.  All we had to do was get the right equipment, get some training, question our sanity, and we were off!

Zermatt is a perfect picturesque Swiss town, filled with tourists and people leisurely strolling the streets, shopping and dining and enjoying the sights.  We were quite a sight ourselves, schlepping bags bigger than ourselves to a ski lift to take us closer to our first day of training. 

First we had basic "walk on rocks" training, then "walk with crampons" training.  Crampons are attachments to your hard boots that have 10-12 "teeth" that bite into the ice allowing you not to kill yourselves on the glacier.  You are much more likely to kill yourself on the little knives when they slide across your pants leg as you walk!

Now on to the fun part, ice climbing.  Tom demonstrated his technique...





And I was not about to turn down the challenge....

and even Nicole got into the action! 

Now it is time for a little dinner.  I think Nicole "smells the barn" and knows they are serving beef tonight! 

We made our way back to the "Gandegghutte", a family owned house accessible only by foot where others also use the altitude to acclimatize and rest prior to a pre-dawn start for the climb. 

We were indeed served a lovely meal of beef stroganoff, and shared a bunkhouse room with eight of our closest friends, with only three of them (not counting  myself) being snorers.  We awoke before dawn, and were treated to a lovely sunrise over our mountain.

 



We hiked back down to the ski lift, and took the "Klein Matterhorn" gondola with about 50 skiers (this is where all the national teams train, no, I did not see Bode Miller) to the back side of the snow covered mountain to begin our ascent. 

We were off on our first real alpine adventure.  We hit no crevasses (cracks in the glacier), and were doing well for the first hour of the climb until two things happened.  First, the wind picked up and we got really cold, right about the time we hit the 35 degree incline.  Tom said "you want me to carry what?" 

Jonas, our guide, was great, helping the girls step by step, finding ways to keep them warm during rest breaks and segmenting the mountain into little achieveable goals.  There were some doubts if we would make it, but 2 1/2 hours later, success!



We had some celebratory hot sweet tea and trudged our way back down the mountain. I really felt sorry for the people we passed who were still going up the steep section, because you could see in their eyes that they could never turn around and quit after seeing that the two little girls had succeeded!

Here are the girls at the bottom of the climb, pretty darn proud of themselves.  I have to say, we are proud of them too. 

Notice those nasty clouds looming in the background.  Time to get off that mountain!  We are already talking about what our next adventure will be.  Who's up for the Matterhorn?

(a special thanks and acknowledgement to Jonas for providing the pictures.  I dropped my camera somewhere the first day.  It may thaw out and show up eventually!)