The warm and dry conditions continue to give fantastic conditions for high mountain rock routes alpine traverses throughout the Western Alps.

Jenny and I made the most of these conditions and completed the classic traverse of the Matterhorn, up the Italian Ridge and down the Hornligrat back to the Zermatt lift system. In this way it is possible to 'comfortably' make the traverse in 2 days from a base in Zermatt.

The elevated height of the Carrel hut over the Hornli Hut (3260m) means the summit day on the Italian side is 600m compared to the huge 1200m for folk climbing from Switzerland. The Italian ridge is however somewhat steeper and more technical, presenting a series of quality easier mountaineering sections interspersed with some entertaining thuggery on fixed ropes and even a ladder!

As the starting time is a bit later from the Carrel Hut by the time we reached the top of the ridge the summit had been cleared by teams coming up and down the Hornli and we had the Swiss (true) summit to ourselves. What a pleasure, the ascent of the Matterhorn had lived up to both its reputation and stunning appearance.

The descent of the Hornli is extremely long and needs a good steady head and ability to just keep on trucking before any afternoon storms may seriously hinder progress. We were somewhat relieved to make the final rappel and down climb to reach terra firma and enjoy the ease of the final 5 minutes walk to the Hornli Hut. But that is 5 minutes walking in 5 hours of sustained descending; the rest is nearly all scrambling and down climbing.

We got distracted by various friends staying at the hut and decided we would make the descent to Schwartzee in the morning meaning a relaxing evening could be spent at the hut without the prospect of a pre-dawn start the next day. I thought it would be a nice idea to get up anyway and witness the site of the crocodile of headtorches snaking up the ridge in the morning.......Maybe next time!