Loyal to his quest to master ski mountaineering, Simon Akam braves the next peak in Switzerland’s Bernese Oberland
Last Thursday afternoon I found myself descending the east side of the Grunhornlucke, a 3,270-metre mountain pass in Switzerland’s Bernese Oberland, on skis while tied to the end of a rope. Visibility had vanished at the top of the pass. In accordance with the protocols that had been drilled into me – glacier descent, bad visibility, rope up – we duly roped together.
The focus of my course this week with Swiss mountaineering school Bergpunkt, over four stormy days in the Bernese Oberland, was learning to operate independently in the high mountains. This move toward autonomy has been what this whole project is about – from January onward. Yes, I hope there will be a race at the end. But more important to me is this idea of developing competency in one narrow human endeavour – uphill skiing – as a cipher for competence more generally.
We were at altitude; the huts we slept in were at 3,048 m and 2,850 m, and we were often higher. There was mist, driving snow. That first afternoon we crossed the Grunhornlucke and I had the aforementioned experience of disorientation. This area, with its large glaciers, seems more Arctic than Alpine and the remoteness is real. At the Finsteraarhornhutte, a mountain refuge, there was no cellphone signal.
In a howling blizzard we cached our skis and ascended to the south summit of a mountain called the Kranzberg, at 3,666 m. There was powder on the way down. Mercifully, we did not have to descend roped together.
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