Climbing the Ofenhorn – a beginner’s first Alpine tour – personal impressions by Esteban Pombo-Villar July 14/15 2013
After this June’s Ice Course, I was eager to try a real alpine tour. The Ofenhorn Jubitour (labelled B for condition and WS for difficulty) , seemed ideal for a beginner. At 8:20 on Saturday some familiar faces gathered at the SBB: Wojtek, our tour guide, and Madlenka, who had been on the 2011 climbing course, and also on the Rhone glacier earlier this year, together with Eva and Yvonne. I recognized Susanne from the climbing courses in 2009 and 2011. The two other members of the group were Philipp and Katja. We took the trains to Brig and Lax, and finally a Post Bus took us to the start of the trail, in Faeld (1519 m). The alpine path to the Mittelbaerghuette crosses the road several times, but after about 4.9 km the it leaves the road and verges to the right. Higher up the path widens, and is paved with large flat stones - a relic of the path that takes into Italy across the Albrun Pass (2409 m). The path forks to the left and climbs sharply towards the Mittelbaerghuette. Reaching the hut, the sign displayed the altitude, 2393 m. We had walked about 7 k, and 940 m total climb. Dinner was served at 7:00, Soup, mixed salad, and a rich meat stew with spiral macaroni - hoernli. Desert was a chocolate cream. Tired and satisfied, I soon went to sleep until 4:30, when the stirrings around me signalled the start of another alpine day.
After a rich breakfast and plenty of coffee we started off at 5:30 AM. Soon we were scrambling across boulders and came to the first old snow field. Wojtek cut steps in the old hard snow, and we advanced at a slow but steady pace. We kept rising towards the left of the valley, crossing ever steeper snow fields and the occasional rocky patch of path. At around 2700 m, we had reached a solid blanket of snow at the edge of the glacier and it was time to rope up and put on the crampons.
We split into two groups of 4, with Philipp leading a rope with Madlenka, Eva and Katja, and Wojtek, Yvonne, Susan and me, on the other rope. We aimed for the saddle and crossed the Hochsandjoch (Sabbione Pass, 2901 m) into Italy. Descending slightly on the other side, we walked southeast across the Sabbione glacier until we reached the ridge, and walking up towards the southwest made steady progress up the steep ridge. The last 50 meters took us up a gentle slope to the top of the Ofenhorn (Punta d’Arbola, 3235 m) where several groups of Italian and a group of German climbers were resting and preparing to descend. The view was breath-taking – glistening in the bright sunlight towards the northeast, the whole Sabbione glacier coated the valley down to the Sabbione artificial lake. Other valleys, peaks and lakes spread down into Italy and on the other side, the Swiss Alps and valleys could be seen.
Soon it was time to leave, and descended sharply towards the southeast along the small d’Arbola Glacier which lies on the south face of the Ofenhorn, till at around 3010 m we turned Southwest and descended towards the Eggerscharte, into Switzerland again, following the contour along the side until we were at about 2840 m. A steep climb to the little pass (Eggerscharte, 2864m) which took us onto a snow field with a few large rocks, which descended towards the Binntalhuette. We were fortunate we could take this path, as later in the Summer there is danger of rock fall. We continued our descent into the Egerofe valley and on to the Binntalhuette, where we had a short rest. We hiked out to the road, and took an Alpine Taxi which gave us just enough time for ice cream before catching the Post Bus, and enjoyed our trip back to Basel.
Esteban Pombo-Villar
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