Weather in the Alps Won’t Stop the Madness

This sum­mer has­n’t been the best in the Alps in terms of the weath­er and there­fore the con­di­tions. It has been rain­ing a lot and the high peaks are cov­ered with fresh snow. The good news is that in the Alps it is fair­ly easy to go to a dif­fer­ent area and still get a great day of alpin­ism. Fol­low­ing that idea, we just fin­ished a trip in Europe with five sum­mits instead of three.

A vari­ety of descent options. Joshua Jar­rin photo

At the begin­ning we were lucky and we could reach the sum­mit of Petite Aigu­ille Verte and Mont Blanc, this last one a beau­ti­ful clear day. After that, we went to Switzer­land and the con­di­tions did­n’t allow us to climb Mat­ter­horn. It has been weeks since any­one has climbed the peak and in pic­tures it looks like it could be win­ter, so we looked at oth­er options. 

A beau­ti­ful Alps sum­mit. Joshua Jar­rin photo

Instead, we climbed Rif­fle­horn and Pol­lux. The first, a fun rocky peak on the Gor­nen­grat area and the sec­ond, a very inter­est­ing 4000m peak locat­ed on the bor­der of Italy. I enjoyed this climb with IFM­GA guide Angela Hawse, Dawn W. and Scott A., both long time climbers with Moun­tain Madness.

The sum­mit ridge of Pol­lux. Joshua Jar­rin photo

For the final part, Scott and I came to Switzer­land and climbed the Mönch, again tak­ing advan­tage of the few good weath­er days on the sea­son. Here are some addi­tion­al pic­tures of this suc­cess­ful trip!

On the sum­mit of Pol­lux. Joshua Jar­rin photos

~MM Guide Joshua Jarrin