UKH

Can anyone advise what conditions are like in these areas (and other Alpine areas)? I haven't been able to find anything specific from these areas (although that could mean nobody is doing anything!).

Does anyone know how the rock ridges are (covered in powder vs neve vs clear) and what snow conditions are like up top (and in general)?

Many thanks in advance

When are you going ?
 

I’m heading to Saas Fee on Friday. If I find out from another source I’ll post the info/link here. 
 

I’ve heard there’s been a bit of snow recently.  
 

Next week, although if we go there/elsewhere in the Alps depends on conditions and weather I think

look at the 'sorties' section of camptocamp. There's a lot of snow, but routes are getting done

I'm at the Almageller hut right now, and it's all very snowy for this time of year. Looking over towards the Taschorn/Dom etc things look very white.

The Weismeis traverse is reportedly in good condition, with the same true of the normal route on lagginhorn. Lagginhorn s ridge apparently climbed in snowy conditions, but a team backed off the weismeis N ridge. Dri horlini dry but portjengrat looks too snowy to climb.

Getting a good overnight refreeze will be the key to the snow routes.

Currently pissing it down in Saas Fee as part of a large  thunder storm. Forecast also looking a bit crap/un settled  for the next few days.  I’m hoping it all blows over in tonights storm but think that’s just wishful thinking.  
 

A guy in the hostel I’m staying at did the Weissmies today and said conditions were ok. 

We planned on doing a mountain route tomorrow but are going  to walk into a hut and hope Monday is better.  

If anybody is thinking of camping or visiting Saas Grund in the next few days then that would be a complete no go. 
 

The roads into the valley are all  closed, there’s no power in Saas Grund & there’s been pretty devastating flood damage in the village.  Even if you wanted to climb in Saas Fee you cant get here at the moment.  

Lifts aren’t running in the valley, I’d expect them to start back up when all of the roads are clear and power is back on in Saas Grund. This may take a few days?  We are getting updates every few hours  & are stuck in a hostel in Saas  Fee with no way out at the moment. 
 

Hope that is of some help to anybody thinking of heading this way. 
 

There are serious problems in Italy too, particularly Cervinia and Cogne in Aosta and parts of Piedmont.. Check things before travelling. 

https://www.facebook.com/100047024152068/posts/1067364878174307/?mibextid=r...

This is footage from Orco. It was posted 8 minutes ago. 

As someone else has said, there are lots of problems in Aosta. Cogne was cut off yesterday and the river has severely damaged a number of roads 

The road into Saas is open again since yesterday evening, we`re driving down from Freiburg today and heading up to the Weismiesshut.

Not the one underground of the lovely bakery?

Can you post what  approach and route conditions are like when  you get down please ? Hoping to get on this next week. I thought it was off the cards after the recent floods. 
 

Went up the Monch today from first lift via the normal route which was a great day out. 

There was a bit of breaking trial to begin with, after  about 40 mins there was a descent track up. 
On the way down we had to make fresh tracks as they had been covered up by snow carried in the wind. 

We did the south ridge of the Lagginhorn, still alot of snow and cornices. First half of the ridge mainly on rock with the occasional easy snow section (Didn`t put crampons on), after that crampons all the way. More time consuming than normal, took us 12 hours from Hohsaashut and back down west ridge to Weismieshut.

Regarding the floods, there was alot of reparing going on in the valley so factor in some time to get to Saas Grund. The path up to Kreuzboden (Middle station of the cable car) is destroyed but you can still get up there on foot.

Hi everyone - thanks for the v helpful conditions advice - just got back from a week in the Zermatt/Saas areas.

In the hope it’s useful for others, here’s what we encountered:

- lots of unconsolidated/soft snow on rock ridges early in the week. We broke trail on a v snowy Breithorn full traverse on Monday 1/7 - challenging and somewhat slow conditions. Snow covered much of it, with poor soft snow conditions. Large soft snow mushrooms, insecure snow knife edges, abseils and rocks buried, hard to protect many sections etc. Took more than guidebook, about 10.5 hrs from Ayas hut to KM cable car. Snow much better pre-Sun, so a v early start recommended. With some snow melted (and what’s left refrozen) it would be in much better / easier condition. But it was doable and (in hindsight?) great fun. Watch out for the cornices!

- given all the snow, we switched to routes that were meant to be snowy… the Dom was in good good condition, albeit the unconsolidated snow on the upper/steeper part of the normal route made for heavy going.

- as of mid last week nobody had climbed the Dente Blanche, due to lots of snow

- Saas is open, albeit a huge recovery operation underway after some enormous looking floods/mudslides

As an update I did the Roccia Nera end of the ridge today. About 15cm of new snow from the weekend so still not great conditions and slow. All standard tracks below ~3800m in good shape though.