On tuesday on a window of good weather we decided to go up towards Dufourspitze. We were walking pretty good and settling in our rhythm as a team, the weather was stupendous, there was just one problem: because of the heavy snows from the past few days, we had no tracks. None! Nada! Zip! Zilch! And it's not like you have signs showing you the way or some special rock that does not get covered by snow or something ... So instead of taking a right and going up what seemed a hill full of crevasses and cornices we took a left and proceeded up an easier (ok, ok, lazy also) slope. We realized we were up a cornice when the snow under M. went "whoop", so M had to come back really fast and we had to get out of there. At least we knew that was the wrong way ...
Our nightly ritual had become getting up at two am in the morning, sticking our heads out of the tent and assessing the weather. This happened also on the night of tuesday to wednesday. Weather was better but still foggy, so we resumed sleep. In the morning the weather was super nice, so we decided to hurry up with breakfast and go up Gorner glacier for some crevasse surfing and some training.
When we came back to the tent we saw four teams coming down from the direction of Dufourspitze. "Shit!" I say to meself, "they have climbed it!". The four teams were british, japanese, hungarian, and polish. M. talks to the british and finds out that the snow was too big and they got tired of breaking it so they gave up. I spoke to the polish team and they told me that they got lost (was it by following our tracks? :D) and that the weather was foggy and when they got just below the first ridge (Doufourspitze just bellow the summit has one 70 degrees ice and snow slope, one ridge, one 60 degrees iced snow slope, another ridge and then a climb up the summit block) they saw an avalanche and decided to retreat.
Excited as I was, not even talks about avalanches, big snow and all that could turn me back now ... I knew we were going to climb that night and that was that!! We woke up around two am, ate, dressed and at first wanted to wait for other teams to go first (it's easier to follow somebody's tracks) but since nobody was coming (we could see no lights from down below) we decided to go for it. It was my first time climbing at night and it took a while for my body to get used to it... Initially there was some low alpine clouds but when we got above them the weather was flawless. My right leg fell into a small crevasse but other than that everything was ok. I saw the most amazing sunrise of my life: Matterhorn and Liskam** were all red, everything else was dark blue and orange ... Amazing!! (no picture of course) Just as we were going up the corniced slope we did not want to go up two days before, a very strong wind whose first customers for the day we were, started to blow. My feet started to freeze (note to self: salomon blue boots - don't know the model - are not fit for high altitudes) and then my hands (could put windstopper gloves on) and then M. started to feel very very very cold on his back. Reason?! The day before when we were walking up the glacier he unzipped the ventilation zippers on his gore-tex and forgot them open!! We had to stop for him to take out his harness, gore-tex, put a polartec on, put the gore-tex back on, harness on, gloves on and so on... I froze to death in the process ...
So we started going up the iced 70 degrees slope. At one point i wanted to take M's photo but the battery had frozen so i put another one inside the d200 but it was frozen also. Took one and put it just under my chin thinking i could warm it up (but I lost it on the summit, i think it fell in Italy). Instead M. took this photo of me*. After this slope we got up to the first ridge. This is where I forgot about the wind, the cold, and about putting sunscreen on our faces.
Now you see, because of the heavy snows in the last days, the ridge, instead of being your ordinary, garden like variety of rocky, granite, ridge on which you can easily scramble, we had your not so nice granite rocky ridge covered with a lot of snow (puffy snow, that is). Which means that when you are stepping on it you cannot tell whether you are stepping on the rock or into immortality, and you only have 1000 m or so on your right and on your left to fall upon. It's true that it's snowed up and you don't realize that you are this high, the only hint being that you can see people down there almost one inch height. So, instead of both of us going at the same time through the ridge, M. had to go first with me sort of belaying him [by sticking my ice axe into the snow, a crab in there and belaying from it]. Needless to say that M weighs around 30 more kgs than me which meant that if he fell my belay station was useless. It did not help that he said: "Claudia, if you want us to live, when I fall you jump on the other side of the ridge". I am a clumsy person by nature and every move I do is thoroughly rehearsed, so chances of me jumping on the right side of the ridge were very slim. So instead I would analyze (I was way beyond the point when I was thinking "omg we're going to die, omg i don't want to die, we also have to come back this way, there's no escalator at the summit, shit shit shit") the possible directions of fall and put myself behind boulders: if he were to fall, i would hit the boulder and hopefully be able to hold him. This is how we went through the second ridge also. Other teams (japanese and british) were pilling up behind us, but none wanted to go first, leaving to us the honor of being first on the summit. 
Yey!!! I was so so so happy and relieved to be on the summit! I nearly hugged the japanese, and the british team (one british guy and his guide), I told the guide congratulations :)) The guide also complimented us [gulp] 
And the view, ah the view!! 
The first picture is of the japanese team descending, you can see Matterhorn on the left, Dent Blanche (the white one) and Weissorn (all are piramides). The next picture is of Nordend which we thought we could do that night, but we were so shacked after the 8 hours ascent and the 4 hours descent that we couldn't do anything more ... So Nordend with its ridge remains a dream. This is another picture of the japanese descending, and these are the british (guide and client).
Now, remember my previous picture where my face was burnt? This is where it happened... We forgot to put sunscreen, the wind was blowing, the sun was so strong, plus it got reflected from the snow ... Plus my nose was runny and I couldn't blow my nose because it hurt, so because of the wind blowing all the mucus froze on my nose [groce, you did not want to know this] leaving my nose and cheek encrusted [if you wish ... yuck!!!]*will upload picture when i get home
**Liskam is the big wall behind me in the picture with me holding the flag next to the summit cross. It has a climbable 1000 m ice wall - the route is rougly where my left fist is :)
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