Mont Velán and Dirruhorn

The alarm was set just before four o’clock, but I was awake before two. Strange, could it be that gut feeling? At 4 o’clock the men came to the dining room and we had our breakfast. When we set out, it turned out to be raining outside; it had been a very warm night. These are definitely not good conditions… During a clear night it is much colder and the snow freezes, but when it is cloudy it does not. Nevertheless, we still climbed the glacier to head towards the Selle couloir. We were the last team but caught up with the German team and later it turned out, the Belgian climbers. On the glacier I kept feeling like I didn’t want to be here. But I’ve never had that feeling before, so I didn’t really know what to do with it. We continued walking and when we arrived at the couloir we took a short break and dropped the rope. On a steep slope it is better not to be stuck together. When one slides down, it pulls the other into its fall. We left a bag on the glacier as we planned to take the same route back. After the climb we also wanted to continue towards the Mischabelhütte. From there we wanted to see if we could still climb the other four peaks. After the break we climbed into the couloir. I went first, Bennie came after me and Dennis came last. Halfway through the couloir I felt a bit bothered by the altitude, so I slowed down a bit. I often have moments like this and know that it will subside within half an hour. After the last part we came to a small rock wall that we had to climb to reach the ridge. The rock was loose rubbish but we got through it. When we arrived at the ridge, the easy climbing turned out to be over. On the other side of the mountain it sloped very steeply and on the side we came from there were decent cornices. I became increasingly grumpy about the situation. Of course everything can be climbed, but we were on the road with this composition for the first time. The question of what we should do came up and we decided to continue for a while. But after a short distance the French team came down again. This team was trying to climb all the 4000ers in the Alps as quickly as possible, and when they return…

That was the moment we also decided to turn around. We carefully descended the ridge to the rocky part. The French decided to descend on this side of the mountain and we on the original side. Of course, one of our backpacks was still there. We climbed through the rock section and traversed to the left from under the cornices. If it breaks off it would come down the right side so you don’t want to be there. After descending a bit we saw some climbers above us. So everyone had started the descent. Suddenly we heard a lot of noise and saw an avalanche passing by. In this avalanche we saw two climbers being dragged through the snow. They landed above the snow on the glacier. One of the climbers moved his arm for a moment and then they lay still. We were terrified and I immediately shouted that we had to call the rescue service. We were still far away from them and could do nothing for them. We descended as quickly as we could and stayed far out of the avalanche zone. When we arrived at the glacier, we saw another climber high in the couloir and shouted for him to come down. Due to the many avalanches we could not do anything for the unfortunate ones. You want nothing more than to help those people, but you are completely powerless.

In the meantime, we continued to keep in touch with the rescue service and just after the climber emerged from the couloir, the helicopter flew in. They first made a circle around the place where the climbers were lying and then the rescuers dropped the injured off to us. We asked the climber who was in the avalanche and he indicated that it was the two Belgian climbers. He was in complete shock at the idea that he was the cause of the avalanche. He sat above the others and stepped his feet into the snow to gain traction in the loose snow. That caused him to fall through and that probably caused the snow to shift. In my opinion, that could have happened to any climber in this soft snow. He was able to save himself by braking with both of his ice axes. His unfortunate predecessors did not. After the Belgian climbers were taken off the mountain by the rescue service, we understood that we would also be picked up by the helicopter. We were perfectly able to walk down the mountain ourselves, but the authorities wanted us to give evidence about the incident. It was also better for the German climber to get down as quickly as possible, back to his comrades. After a while the helicopter came to pick us up. We were almost blown over by the wind coming off those blades. I’ve never been picked up by a helicopter before so I knew that. When the helicopter was just above the glacier, a rescue worker got out and helped us inside. Then we took off and what followed was a special flight through the Mischabel massif. The reason we were in the helicopter was of course not a pleasant one at all, but it was an experience. After we flew past the Bordierhütte to pass something on to the doctors, we flew on to Sankt Niklaus. The police were waiting for us there for a witness statement. We discussed the situation and they took down our details in case any further information was needed for the investigation. Our car was still in Saas-Almagell so we would have to travel by public transport again. Fortunately, one of the officers offered to take us to Stalden. That saved half the journey. After some jokes about how it would be nice to sit in the front instead of the back of the police car, we drove towards Stalden. Along the way, the officer told me that he also climbed mountains himself and had done the Weisshorn Nordgrat last year. Respect!

After a pleasant ride he dropped us at the station where we were looked at strangely by the travelers, I understand that. After thanking the officer, we jumped on the bus and continued our way to Saas-Almagell. We discussed everything again and concluded that we were especially happy that we were safely downstairs. Back at the car we had something to eat and I went to my family. The climbing was done this trip. It has been made clear to us in a harsh way that we have used up our share of luck and we will have to return another time. The next morning we drove back to the Netherlands with a lot of food for thought…