I really did not think this would happen and I am so glad I got the chance. Since the rockslide, I figured it would not happen. I did not know if things would be safe and if Freddy´s schedule would open up. As it turned out, the rockfall was not abnormal after the big slide and then Freddy encouraged me to go with one of his friends or the local Zermatt guides. That is exactly the encouragement I needed. Once he e-mailed me, I was really excited. I called from Vienna to book a guide and got on a train the next morning. That was Sunday and on Monday morning I had my gear and was in the guides´ office. The office said if the weather held in the afternoon, chances are we would go up. If it rained, it did not look good.

Well, as I sat eating my bratwurst and potatoes, watching the rain pour down an hour later ( at 1 pm, the afternoon ), I cursed the weather. It always seems the weather gets me in mountaineering. I kept telling myself it was to be expected and that is just the way it goes. I really had no choice but to get up to the Hornli Hutte because that is where I was supposed to meet my guide and I would never forgive myself if for some far out reason, summiting was actually possible the following day.

I took the tram up to Schwarz See and started the hour and 1/2 hike to the Hornli Hutte. Just then it started to rain a little and I patted myself on the back because I put my gore-tex jacket on my head so that the jacket covered my backback. Pretty clever I thought. About 1 minute later it did not seem so clever. It started to downpour, thunder, and lightning . . . I was soaked head to toe. My backpack was pretty dry though. I stopped in a covering which is used for a chair lift in the summer and apparantly by goats in the summer, judging from the you know what which completely covered the floor. There were about 10 other climbers taking refuge and I changed into dry clothes. The other guys continued up after a while and I figured, again, that I better give a go even though it was a lost cause.

Long story short, we did give it a go the next day and we made it to the top!!! It had snowed on the route that day and our guide said this was the toughest summit of the year. I believe it. The night before the climb, I met my guide, Susan, who actually knew Freddy. After a tough night ( I always get nervous. ), we started out at 5 am. At about 5:15, one of the guides got sick and had to turn around. Susan took on his client ( John, a nice guy from Olso. ) so the 3 of us roped up.

Right from the outset they have some fixed ropes and you start to climb. There was some good rock scrambling for about an hour and then we put on the crampons ( much sooner than normal I learned later ) still about 1 hour below the Savoy Refuge. I always wondered what it was like climbing in mixed rock and snow. It was pretty cool. The views were magnificent and often exposed on the right side. I kept telling myself, "Just like Donner Summit, just like Donner Summit." A few weeks before I left, Bela Vadasz of Alpine Skills Intnl gave me some training. It was just like Donner, just a heck of a lot longer. However, the foot and hand holds were very big, just like Bela had said. It´s just it was a lot of rock climbing, which was great . . . on the way up.

There were a few sections where we took off our gloves to get better holds. On a really cool section, where you had great exposed views off to our right, I met two American guys from Boulder, CO who had come out just to climb the Matterhorn. They could tell I was not the greatest climber and one asked if I had ever done anything like this before, "Nope, never like this.", I replied, but at that moment it struct how awesome this was. Every now and then when I was struggling with a move, they would say, "Nice move to encourage me." They were cool.

After that ridge, we made it to the fixed ropes on the steepest section. It was easy except for my fingers almost froze to the bone. However, after about 20 minutes we were back on the sunny side of the ridge and I would not have to worry about being cold again all day. Next was the roof and Susan said to step with care because it was steep and snowy. She was right, it was steep, but she was ready if we slipped. About 20 minutes later, we were walking past the Guardian statue, and at the top. A girl was phoning her boyfriend or husband from the top when we walked up! You have to walk past a pretty narrow section to get to the true summit and I walked carefully as John raced forward, whoooh, whooh, easy there. The summit was great, pretty narrow and spectacular views. We saw the Eiger to the north and Mont Blanc to the south. What a great feeling.

However, now the hard part . . . going down. It took 5 hours to summit and 6 to get down. I do not think I have ever been so exhausted. The way down was tough because you downclimb all that rock you went up. It is not hard, but I would call it very tedious. I just lost all my conditioning about half way down, but I was determined to not make any mistakes and just get down safely. We made it fine and I was so happy. I missed the last tram back to Zermatt, so I spent a relaxing night in the hut and even ran into Ed Robinson, who had climbed the Enclosure with me on the Grand Teton. He made it up the next day. Small world!