An easy walk today, over the Gemslicke col to the Finsteraarhorn hut. We left the hut at 0640, after sunrise, but with the route over the Studergletscher and up to the Gemslicke still in shadow. We made good time on firm névé and easy slopes up to the col. The view back to the Oberaarjoch and Oberaarhorn, with the sun low in the sky, was splendid.
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| Early morning view of Oberaarhorn and Oberaarjoch |
The view the other side came as a surprise, though. While our way up had been over easy firm snow, the other side of the col dropped sheer out of sight down a scree and rubble filled couloir. We unroped, and spent a few minutes taking photos before setting off.
The descent didn't seem too bad at first. The path was over soft, loose scree, but we were all used to moving on that kind of terrain. The main danger was stonefall - it was impossible not to dislodge loose stones every few steps, and the couloir funnelled everything down onto the path below.
A little way down we heard people coming up, and waited for them to reach us. They nodded as they passed, out of breath with the steep gradient. But they were wearing crampons!! On scree?? What school of alpinism was this? We soon found out.
John was ahead, and Chris and I had stopped so as not to knock any stones down on him. Suddenly he stopped too, turned and shouted something we couldn't quite hear. He then started inching his way gingerly down, turning to face into the slope. What was going on, we wondered? Eventually he made it to a less steep strip of moraine rubble, and stopped. I started down to join him.
I'd just reached the narrowest part of the couloir when the puzzle was solved. The thick scree was suddenly no more than a thin covering over solid ice. Not the crunchy, gritty surface of a dry glacier, but loose shale and pebbles on ice. Moving without slipping was almost impossible, as John had found. At least it explained why the people we'd passed were wearing crampons.
By the time we'd all found somewhere safe to put on our own and had descended the last 50 metres or so to the end of the couloir, the short section of the route down from the col had taken us longer than the 2.5km from the hut to the col.
The rest of the way to the Finsteraarhorn hut was uneventful, although the glacier immediately below the hut is quite badly crevassed. We took to the lateral moraine at one point, but this was if anything more risky than the glacier with a good chance of slipping on the loose rubble.
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| Crevassed glacier below the Finsteraarhorn hut |
| time | altitude(m) | distance(km) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Oberaarjoch hut | 0640 | 3256 | 0 |
| Studergletscher | 0650 | 3080 | 0.5 |
| Gemslicke | 0740(a) 0800(d) |
3335 | 2.5 |
| Fieschergletscher | 0950 | 2820 | 3.8 |
| Finsteraarhron hut | 1050 | 3048 | 5.5 |
| Total height gain/loss (m) | +483 / -691 | ||
| Total time | 3h 50m (+20m) | ||
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Last updated 7 September 2002