Sunday 25 April 2010, Vignettes Hut to Zermatt

Another amazing day. Up before 5 am, breakfast at 5.30, we started at first light, 6.15, from the Vignettes Hut (3157 m). The hut is perched on a cliff and first we had to retrace our steps on arrival along the adjacent ridge to be able to ski down 60 m to the Glacier du Mont Collon. Then the first of three climbs, to Col de l'Eveque, Col du Mont Brule and Col de Valpelline, interspersed by short descents. Finally we had nearly 2000 m of descent through the most spectacularly crevassed glaciers passing under the north face of the Matterhorn, arriving (after a well earned beer at Stafelalp) at about 3pm. The snow got very soft below about 2500 m, the gradient disappeared and the sun got hotter so getting down to Zermatt was nearly as hard, in our exhaustion, as the earlier climbs. The last photo shows truly the end of the Haute Route, where the snow ran out at Furi.

Our guides Jim and Paul, have looked after us very well (and driven us hard - we are the fastest SCGB haute routers they have had!) Much more could be said but time does not permit. The celebrations begin.
James and Philip