#weisshorn

A lot of time, people who don’t climb mountains assume is about this great heroic sprint for the summit, and somehow this great ego-driven ambition. But actually it’s the reverse. It’s about supplication and sacrifice and humility, when you go to these mountains. It’s not so much a celebration of oneself but the eradication of one’s self-consciousness. And so on these walks you lose yourself, you become a vessel of energy in harmony hopefully with your environment. One thrives on enthusiasm, curiosity, humility.

Julian Sands

I was saddened to read that the dead remains of Julian Sands were finally found in the San Gabriel Mountains near Los Angeles. I hadn’t realised how deeply immersed he really was in just wearing all weather anorak, a thermos flask of tea, and a laminated Ordinance Map before he set off on an arduous hike or a climb.

As great as a character actor Julian Sands was, he was also an accomplished mountaineer. He once described himself as happiest when “close to a mountain summit on a glorious cold morning”, climbed all around the world, including the Andes and Indonesia’s Puncak Jaya, the highest mountain on an island and the only place in the country where you can find snow. I know it’s an arduous climb having done it myself. It requires a weeks-long hike through remote jungle and some chasms which can only be crossed by Tyrolean traverse ziplines.

Julian Sands was on his way to completing the dream of most mountaineering aficionados: competing the Seven Summits. It’s a considerable undertaking in every way not just the obvious physical costs but also the average cost of completing all seven which can rack up to £150,000.

Sands had done five - Aconcagua, Puncak Jaya (Oceania), Mont Blanc (Europe), Vinson (Antarctica) and Kilimanjaro (Africa) - and had only had Denali (North America) and Everest (Asia) left.

Sands also took on the Weisshorn in the Swiss Alps. Now this is revealing as any experienced or passionate mountaineer would tell you. The nearby Matterhorn may be more famous, but many mountaineers consider the Weisshorn both more beautiful, with its symmetrical triangular pyramid shape and pure white slopes, and more challenging too, combining a long and serious route with delicate rock pitches and steep snow climbing. I know I do. It’s an incredible climb to experience which I did with some army veteran friends of mine.

Sands death is a tragedy as his passion for mountaineering was inspiring. I was nodding my head when I read that Sands once began a telephone interview by saying, “Right now I’m looking across the North Face of the Eiger towards the Jungfrau. Spectacular!” But then he rang the journalist back several hours later from a bivouac to impress upon him that, though he was climbing the Eiger, he was going up the easier Mittellegi Ridge rather than the feared North Face. “Mountain and climbing folk, and a small percentage of your readers, will know the difference.” Yes, I thought, Sands gets it. I bowled over by his humility and his honesty generously bound up with his joie de vivre. These are the values of real mountaineers in seeking to climb the mountains of the mind.

roam

Cruising by the summit of the Weisshorn with @brendandubs and @gregoryinoonan following. No words can describe being connected to the mountain like this.⠀

>> Caption by @brendandubs video @gregoryinoonan

Avete mai pensato di avvicinarvi al paradiso? Sì, lo so che vi state chiedendo come... Basta salire sulla Ferrovia del Gornergrat (Svizzera) che vi porterà da Zermatt fino al Gornergrat, una delle altissime cime alpine dal quale ammirare un panorama mozzafiato. 

Non solo questa linea ferroviaria a trazione elettrica e a cremagliera è la più vecchia ferrovia a cremagliera d’Europa all’aperto (è stata inaugurata nel 1898) ma è anche la più alta al mondo tra quelle scoperte: infatti, dai 1.605m di Zermatt in circa mezz’ora raggiunge i 3.089m di Gornergrat con pendenze che nell’ultimo tratto arrivano ai 200 per mille. Il percorso si snoda tra boschi, gallerie, ponti e pascoli ed è possibile fare delle fermate intermedie. 

Guardate con attenzione fuori dal finestrino perchè all’improvviso ecco che nascosta tra gli alberi compare l’inconfondibile sagoma del Cervino che si avvicina sempre più mentre state per salire. 

Poi, preparatevi a godervi lo spettacolo finale non appena raggiungerete la piattaforma: 29 tra i più suggestivi quattromila alpini, dal Rosa con la Punta Dufour (4.634m), al Cervino e al Weisshorn, arrivando fino alle Alpi bernesi, il lago di Riffel ed il ghiacciaio del Gorner. 

Come è successo a me, sarete lì piccoli piccoli davanti a quei giganti, immobili ed estasiati, senza parole, avvolti da un’inebriante aria frizzantina...