Anyway, enough about cheese!! We went to Saas Grund to climb and we were not dissappoointed. This was my fourth trip to the alps, though my first trip unaccompanied by a much more experienced climbing partner. Gemma and Graeme had viisited Chamonix but not climbed any of the higher routes there, so we  were a relatively inexperienced group. After Pete's slide show earlier this year, we knew that Saas would give us an ideal introduction to Alpine climbing as well as offering many other options by way of lower level hiking, valley climbing and via ferrata.

 

We opted to climb the Lagginhorn first as it is mostly rock and so

 

 

 

suited our experience well. A very short snow slope leads  up to the start of the climb, but the remainder of the route is simply rocky walking, with some exposed areas of interest and a short pitch of grade II climbing. I cannot help but see the Lagginhorn as the “Old Man” of the Saas valley. Indeed it was as busy as the Coniston fells, if not more so, and there was a good deal of 'tourist' traffic present – one man seemed quite ill- equipped for the task and waited for a long time near the upper ridge of the mountain until he could follow me up because he was lost! The route finding was very easy, with painted red dots and polished crampon marks to follow. We took the lazy option and walked in from Housus cable station, though it didn't feel quite so lazy, being our first acclimatising climb of the trip!

 

Gemma and Graham on Lagginhorn.