I have just had a couple of days over in Kandersteg climbing with Graeme Ettle and Neil Stevenson.
We met in Martigny and went round to Evolene and tried the Cascade du Couloir unfortunatley the top pitch was a bit thin and detached looking so we ran away and drove through the kandersteg. I hadn't climbed there before and was blown away by the scale of the routes, who need Canada. We checked out conditions on Wed afternoon then climbed Rattinpissoir with the groll finish which is superb a long intro 4+ pitch then a pitch of 5 up a pilar which graeme made look far to easy. If you finish up Groll you get another 2 great pitches of climbing in. the next day we went to have alook at Lurking Fear in Adelboden the route has a big bowl above it which due to the change in wind direction was filling with snow quickly sending spindrift avalanches down the route so we ran away but will definitley be back.
Saturday saw kate and I on an early train to Zermatt to meet John and Fiona Fells, the plan was to Heli ski Monte Rosa which we had climbed a few years before. The flight was fantastic taking us past all the big Zermatt peaks dropping us at just over 4000m, the ski down was best described as variable with some great snow and lots of wind pack. The exit off the Gorner gletscher is the easiest I have seen as the glacier has retreated. On Sunday Kate and I were back in Zermatt this time skiing the Schwarz Glatscher which we had completely to ourselves. Monday we headed to the small resort of Kippel in Lotschental witha short hike we skied to the Lochenpass hut for lunch then did a huge off piste descent into the valley. After skiing we headed through to Kandersteg we started early on Tuesday as the last time I climbed in Kandersteg there were loads of team out climbing sods law stated that having go up early the only other people we saw all day were some mates from Scotland. Spider and his wife were climbing Rattenpissoir while Kate and I climbed Arbonium which was in superb condition. I;m off to Norway this afternoon so fingers crossed for lots of ice.