Allalinhorn seen from the normal route. The only hard section of the climb is the rocky part just bellow the summit also known as the rock step.








Weissmies. The mountain we intend to scale first and do some ice climbing practise:-)











This great picture shows three 4000 peaks which separate the Zermatt and Saas Fee valleys.
From left to right-Dom(the highest swiss peak) Lenzspitze with its scary ice covered north wall and Nadelhorn, which appears tallest in the picture.







A photo of the Castor and Pollux mountains situated in the Monte Rosa group. Doesnt that glacier look scary?












Lyskamm with its 1km tall north face... Not the route we intend to take. It would be cool as hell though...










Hopefully, Vera and I will stand on top of some of this peaks just a couple of months from now

swiss planning

Closer the summer is getting, more I think about the time we will spend in Switzerland with Vera. Our goal is to have a great time camping in the Alps as well as climbing mountains. Since we have no experience in glacier travel, snow or ice climbing we are planning to take it easy from the beggining. Practice the self-arrest technique using the ice-axes, how to use the crampons, roping up techniques, how to pull ourselves from a crevasse.

There is a lot of beautiful mountains in Switzerland and for past few weeks I have been trying to find some "easy" 4000ers, which would be a great to start with. Some that dont involve long exposed technical climbing.

well this is what I came up with so far.

we would like to start with the mount WEISSMIES(4023) which is really close to the town of Saas Fee. The other possibilities to acclimatize would also be NADELHORN(4327) and ALLALINHORN(4027). we will see when we get there.

After the first couple of climbs we would like to traverse the DOM mountain massive to the valley just west of Saas Fee to Zermatt to see MATERHORN once again. from there we will probably hike to the MONTE ROSA HUT which is a starting point for a lot of 4000.I would like to summit one of the sumits of LYSKAMM(4527) and traverse to the other one, or get to the top of CASTOR(4226) and POLLUX(4092).

Right now the only thing we can do is to read as much as we can about these mountains, get in shape, get all the neccesary gear we still dont have and wait.

well here are some pictures of the mountains i have talked about...