Just before 1:30 p.m. yesterday afternoon, I stood just below the summit of Rosablanche, a 3,336-metre peak in the Swiss canton of Valais. The day was clear, and on the horizon to the southeast stood the Matterhorn, the 4,478-metre peak that overshadows the resort of Zermatt. From this angle the peak did not show its most pyramidal side – as featured on cases of Caran d’Ache colouring pencils. Instead the mountain, 25 straight-line kilometres away, presented a different, hunchback aspect.
the mountains. From Arolla we climbed up the Glacier de Pièce toward the Vignettes Hut, a refuge at 3,160 m. Above: Route planning on a paper map. Below: A map on the Swiss avalanche avoidance app White Risk shows the Dix reservoir.During our descent too, as we came close to the hut, I saw that a serac, an ice cliff, had collapsed above the route, leaving a trail of debris down to our tracks. The guide explained that this route, while not somewhere to linger, was still the best option. The alternative was heavily crevassed.
That was the night before. At breakfast at 5:30 a.m., there were rumours of strange noises in the darkness. I never got entirely to the bottom of what happened, but our guide said later he’d heard that one of the kids had been found in the middle of the night, shivering outside the hut, in such a state that the staff considered a defibrillator, and instead called for a helicopter, which flew them out.