Tag Archives: Allalinhorn

Early morning light

Posted on Sat, 20 August, 2016 by

Yesterday I caught a cable-car ride to Schwarzsee and this was one of the views that greeted me. Some mornings take your breath away. The light had a softness to it and a thin veil of mist hung over the … Continue reading →

Posted in Swiss Alps - Summer | Tagged , , , , , , , | 10 Comments

Queue ahead

Posted on Fri, 12 August, 2016 by

Straightforward mountains are popular mountains. And on a sunny summer’s day don’t expect to have the mountain to yourself. This is the traffic jam of roped parties taking aspirant climbers up the Allalinhorn, and this is quite possibly their first … Continue reading →

Posted in Black & White, Climb and Trek, Uncategorized | Tagged , | 12 Comments

A Place to Pause

Posted on Mon, 20 July, 2015 by

Mountain walking is not always about the objective; there are days when one just wants to walk and soak up the landscape, listen to the quietness, and be at peace. Takehide Kazami – Japanese author, climber, and photographer wrote way … Continue reading →

Posted in MountainScape, Walking in the Alps | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 21 Comments

Line of Ascent

Posted on Wed, 27 May, 2015 by

Take one look at this long line of roped parties – akin to a traffic snarl-up – to understand why, on easy climbs in the Alps, I far prefer to climb solo. There’s nothing intrinsically difficult about this climb provided … Continue reading →

Posted in Black & White, Climb and Trek, Swiss Alps - Summer | Tagged , , , , , , | 17 Comments

The Way Up and Down

Posted on Tue, 5 August, 2014 by

Throwing caution to the wind we went as high as possible today (to Mittel Allalin) on the one and only fully dry day so far. Clouds still obscured some of the many summits but it was worth the trip and … Continue reading →

Posted in Black & White, Swiss Alps - Summer | Tagged , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Descending

Posted on Mon, 9 September, 2013 by

Ed Viesturs, the first American to summit all fourteen of the world’s eight thousand metre peaks wrote: ‘Getting to the top is optional, getting down is mandatory’. Anyone who climbs knows how easy it is to reach a summit and … Continue reading →

Posted in Black & White, Climb and Trek | Tagged , , , , , | 9 Comments

For the View

Posted on Fri, 30 August, 2013 by

Why do I climb mountains? People climb mountains for many reasons: Because they’re there (to paraphrase George Mallory), as part of a self imposed challenge (climbing all the Munros, or all the Alpine 4000M peaks for example), maybe simply for … Continue reading →

Posted in Black & White, MountainScape | Tagged , , , , , , | 27 Comments

A familiar silhouette

Posted on Mon, 19 August, 2013 by

Get to know a person, a view, a mountain well and you will instantly recognize them by their silhouettes or outlines. Subconsciously we do this regularly without really being aware of what we are doing. Artists, designers, those working in … Continue reading →

Posted in Eclectica, MountainScape | Tagged , , , , | 6 Comments

The Allalinhorn re-visited

Posted on Thu, 1 August, 2013 by

Last summer I climbed the Allalinhorn fifty years after my first ascent, and I wrote about it in My Golden Mountain. Yesterday I soloed it again – in total my eighth ascent. The mountain looks the same but each year … Continue reading →

Posted in Climb and Trek, MountainScape | Tagged , , , | 15 Comments

The Britannia Hut

Posted on Sat, 27 July, 2013 by

A walk to the Britannia Hut is a pilgrimage for me whenever we come to Saas Fee because 51 years ago this summer, this was the first hut I ever visited (and stayed in) and from which I climbed my … Continue reading →

Posted in Swiss Alps - Summer, Walking in the Alps | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 14 Comments