I was climbing with Charles Eggleston this week, we hoped to climb the Matterhorn which Charles had wanted to climb since seeing it on a skiing holiday when he was 14. We warmed up climbing the normal route on the Peigne which was excellent then headed to the Hornli hut on Monday. The weather was perfect for our ascent of the Hornli ridge on the Matterhorn and we had plenty of time to enjoy the Italian summit as well as the Swiss. We had one more day of good weather to get up high so we climbed the half traverse of the Breithorn which was superb. The forecast was a bit mixed for the rest of the week so we headed across to the St Gottard area hoping to escape the worst of it. We climbed a multi-pitch rock route close to the road climbing the last 2 pitches in the rain on Thursday and finished the week climbing the superb NE ridge on the Pizzo del Prevat.
I was working with John Taylor, Graeme MacMahon and Mile Bright for the first part of this week on a Matterhorn, the core of the team we were climbing with had climbed Mont Blanc with John and I three years ago and were back for something a bit more technical. The first half of the week was acclimatisation and training with Matterhorn planned for the second half of the week. The Matterhorn has to be guided 1:1 so we were joined by Mark Charlton, Tim Connelly, Steve Banks and Adam Gordon for the second half of the week. We started traversing the Crochu in the Aiguille Rouge then headed round to the hellbroner lift on Monday morning, the weather looked pretty ropy so we traversed the Aiguille Marbery before spending the night in the Torino hut. The next morning we relocated to the Aiguille du Midi and climbed the Cosmiques arete. Wednesday mornign was an early start so we could trverse the breithorn above Zermatt from the first lift. The weather did not look good enough for our team to attempt the Matterhorn so we climbed an excellent rock route on the Riffelhorn pulling our ropes on the final Abseil as the first rain drops arrived. We finished the week climbing at Machaby in Italy enjoying a great Italian picnic and coffee. Although we didn't manage the Matterhorn the team went away having learn lots about mountaineering and will be better prepared for next time.