The Magical Monte Rosa Massif
~ Sunday, 31st July 2011
The Monte Rosa massif is always a delightful place to spend some time. The hills are beautifully glaciated, never too serious, but pleasantly challenging and the huts are as friendly as they get. Jo, Neil and I started our journey from the Klein Matterhorn lift, with the tall order of crossing Castor to reach our first 
hut of the week, the Quintino Sella. Both Jo and Neil dealt admirably with this, but I'm not sure that the facilities were worth it in Neils opinion!!! Tuesday dawned beautifully and another challenging day lay ahead with the crossing of Il Naso del Lyskamm. Steeper than the average walk, I'd say! The Gnifetti hut looked after us really well, well enough infact to 
stay for a second night, giving us the opportunity to bag several of the close together 4000 metre summits nearby. A fairly claggy day though. Our high point of the week was to be the Zumsteinspitze followed by a night in the Marguerita hut on the Signalkuppe. Brilliant. 
Great weather, recent snows had given a clean look to everything and the pasta in the Marguerita hut was the best of the week! Having summited all nine of our intended peaks, Friday was reserved for the impressive walk down the Grenzgletscher, past the new Monte Rosa hut and on the Zermatt. The Grenzgletscher was just stunning, some of the most 
amazing glacier travel in the whole of the Alps, big crevasses, towering ice-cliffs, the mighty north side of Lyskamm, exciting route finding, all made better with a healthy coat of fresh snow.
Many thanks to Neil and Jo for their efforts and hard 
work to give us all such a great week
