Roccia Nera

It took a day to recover from the trip to Col Durand, however by the 25th July we were ready to go again. We had a look at the guidebook, to help us make our decision. Al was not too impressed with my idea of the Brithorn on its own as a single day trip graded facile (F) so we carried on looking and came to the Traverse of the Breithorn (AD) which we felt was going to be a good route. The guidebook describes the ridge as 2.5km long with varied climbing on both snow and rock. We decided that this would give good practice of mixed climbing in preparation for the Matterhorn, which we had planned for later in the holiday.

We planned to walk to the Rossi and Volante bivouac hut on the first day (pictured to the left), and then to attempt the ridge the following day. Having made our plans we had a brunch of ham and cheese with french bread followed by cake and were ready to go!

We left Zermatt at 12:00 and went to the bottom of the Klein Matterhorn cable car station. Once we had recovered from the shock of the cable car prices (40 pounds for a return full price) we took the first stage to Furi. Rather than going straight up to Trocknersteg we took a detour on the next gondola up to Schwarzee! When we again reached Furi we changed to the right cable car which took us to Trocknersteg then the Klein Matterhorn.

From here we chose to take the lower route to the Bivi hut since there were warnings in the guide book relating to the upper route being heavily crevassed in warm weather. We came to one crevasse which caused a bit of a problem when Al suggested that I should jump (something I avoid when not wearing crampons let alone with them)! After a lot of convincing and a big step we were able to carry on. We had good views across to Castor, Pollux and Liskamm as we walked towards the hut. We made our way up the West side of the rock on which we thought the hut was meant to stand. There were some snow bridges to cross which we were unsure of the safety of, so we proceeded with caution. When we got to the top of the rocky outcrop we were able to find the hut which is well hidden other than the smell around it. We reached the hut at 3:30 p.m.

We took a look at the slope which we would have to ascend the next day, and went inside the bivi but for a snooze before tea. This year we had "luxury bivouacs" since Al had brought out his stove, so after a dinner of soup and noodles of some sort we went to sleep.

Al commented the next day that I have a habbit of fidgeting in my sleep, so much so he almost went to the lower bunk! After a couple of paracetamol during the night I slept well. The hut is an excellent place to spend the night, and I would recommend it as a good alternative to carrying all your bivi gear out (we had ours this time as we did not know what the hut was like). Al's alarm went off at 4:00 a.m. - I guess this was his revenge for the movement during the night! We had a quick breakfast of hot chocolate with museli before setting out in to the cold of the early morning at 4:45 a.m..

As we approached the slope which we had looked at the previous day we could tell that the ground was well frozen. The guidebook describes the slope as "an easy descent route" so we thought it would be very easy in ascent. Because of the hot summer weather, what would normally be a snow slope was a sheet of ice and we had to take care in our ascent. As we gained height the dawn arrived and we got some great views across to Castor and Pollux. We reached the summit of Roccia Nera as the sun began to rise, which gave rise to some of the photos you can see here.

The descent was hard work, and care was essential to avoid slipping, which could have led to a fall of up to 100 meters down the slope. By the time I reached Al he was starting to feel cold with the wind. We decided that I would lead on for the next pitch since this would save time. I went down the next 50 meters before setting up my first ever belay on an ice slope. I was impressed with the ease with which my ice screws went in, and was able to appreciate the reason for getting screws with rotating handles on them! After this Al came down to me and took the next 50 meters. We carried on this way down the length of the sdlope. In all it took us 6 pitches, and over an hour. We reached the hut at around 10:00 a.m. where we stopped for a chocolate break.

We realised that the wind would have made the traverse of the Breithorn hard work, and, as we left the rock on which the hut is situated, we were pleased that we had turned back. We chose to take the upper path back to the Klein Matterhorn since we did not want to cross the snow bridges we had crossed on the way up. We found the route easily enough, and it was actually safter than that we had followed the day before. We saw guided parties ascending between the East and Central summits of the Breithorn, however we met no other parties on the ice slope during the ascent of Roccia Nera, suggesting that no-one was doing the full traverse of the Breithorn because of the conditions (the Half Traverse of the Breithorn is one of the routes which is used for Matterhorn training by the Guides).