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The Ambleside Old Boy’s Tour of Mounte Rosa

Brief summary and Photos of:
The Ambleside Old Boy’s Tour of Mounte Rosa

Only four of us this year Brian Martin couldn’t make it so it was Dave Holcroft, Roger Bell, John Taylor and Ray Grey. No diary this year either much to Roger’s relief.

Good bits’ of which there were many but here’s a few:

  1. The 4 hour train journey from Geneva to Zermatt. Never thought I’d enjoy this but it was great, stunning views of the length of Lake Geneva then up to Zermatt on the mountain train from Visp
  2. 7 days of glorious sunshine
  3. Stage 1, First day The Matterhorn in your face all day, while climbing up to Theodulpass 3317 metres, stunning
  4. Great walking with glorious views everyday, see photo’s
  5. Hardly any other walkers about
  6. Fine hospitality where ever we went
  7. Stage 6, brilliant view of the Monte Rosa Massif from Monte Moro
  8. Stage 7, The High balcony path between Saas Fee and Grachen, superb
  9. Local Red wine :)

Bad Bit’s or should I say if anyone is going to do the walk here’s a few don’ts

Don’t, if your trying to do the first 2 stages in one day follow the ski lift to the top when crossing the glacier, this brings you to the Refugio del Cervinos 600ft higher and 1 kilometre away from the Theodulpass (where you want to be) A lot of wasted energy and time especially at over 11,000 ft on your first day.

Then after making our first cock up we descended from Theodulpass into barren bulldozed ski pistes (the worst bit of the walk). Here the path and signs completely disappeared and you’ve guessed it we descended 500 metre’s down the wrong path, by this time there was no chance of completing stage 2 so we had to descend another 500metres to Breuil-Cervinia an Italian ski resort in the next valley to spend the night (knackered). It cost us about ¾ day to make it up.

Don’t, when setting of from the Refugio Pastore (stage 5) at 9am in the morning, miss the unmarked turn to the Colle del Turlo and go ambling up the wrong path for 1 3/4hrs climbing 600 metres before you realise you’ve gone the wrong way (I blame the Red wine and Roger)

Don’t concentrate so much on not falling of the high balcony path on stage six that you walk into a low hanging rock cutting your head open like John did (blood everywhere). Fortunately high quality first aid was administered straight away (we bunged a hanky under his hat) so he was able to carry on.

Don’t loose your boarding pass between the security section and the boarding gate at the airport (all of 40 metres) like John did.

and 10 minutes later

Don’t loose your boarding pass between the boarding gate and the plane (all of 50metres) like Roger did. This is true believe me

Don’t rely on one person (John) to take all the great views with his super modern digital camera, he managed to delete all the pictures by mistake. Age and modern technology not a good mix in John’s case. Fortunately Roger took some with his old faithful, see Photo’s

Last but not least don’t take an Ambleside Old Boy with you as a navigator

Conclusion

A great holiday, well recommended

Cheers