This summer Larry True of Seattle, WA returned to the Alps to climb with Kathy. This time his friend and colleague Fre Bosman, currently living in Lausanne, Switzerland joined them as well. Their plans were to climb in the Saas Fee and Zermatt areas, picking up some peaks that Larry and Fre, seasoned frequenters of the Alps, had not yet done—a challenging task, given their long "done that" list!

We started out climbing the South Ridge of the Weissmies, from the Almageller hut. Here Fre and Larry are seen on our descent of the West Face route. Beautiful weather, still quite soft and sloppy snow conditions. The Alphubel, Täschhorn, and Dom (in cloud) and Lenzspitze/Nadelhorn are in the background.

Fre and Larry on the summit of the Weissmies

Other parties topping out on the South Ridge.

From a comfy hotel in Saas Grund, we took a more relaxing day to climb a rock route on the nearby Jegihorn. Larry "cranks the crux" on this lovely schist face.

On the summit of the Jegihorn. In the background are the Mischabel peaks, Allalinhorn on the left.

The forecast for the following day was quite poor, but it started out fairly nice, so we headed up to do the "Fee kopf", a satellite of the Allalinhorn, as shown here on our approach.

By the time we got on the ridge, the announced "Scottish conditions" had more or less settled in. This ridge being quite exposed, maybe it was just as well that visibility was low!

Topping out on the Fee Kopf. Fortunately the expected thunder storms never materialized, and we descended at our leisure.

The following day we set out for the Dom hut, famous for the long and arduous approach to get to it! A rainy morning forced a late start, and we stopped for lunch at the hospitable and cozy"Europa" hut.

A warm and welcoming refuge from the chilly mist outside, as you can imagine it was rather hard to leave!

The long, steep cables and ladders were fun, despite the disappointing lack of views. We knew they were out there somewhere!

Once at the Dom hut, the clouds began to break up a bit at last, giving us a hint of our spectacular location.

The following morning was clear and cold. Here we are turning headlights off at dawn, the Weisshorn, Zinalrothorn and Obergabelhorn in the background.

Unfortunately illness intervened and we had to put off Dom for another year. But then, you always gotta leave something to come back for!

To finish off, Larry and Kathy chose the Rimpfischhorn. The summit structure is shown here; the actual summit is off to the left of this view.

The Rimpfischhorn. is climbed from the Berghotel Fluealp, famous for its excellent kitchen. Here a causal Zermatt wedding party enjoys the lovely summer afternoon on its terrace, complete with live music! Great entertainment, but we early risers were just as glad when the party broke up around dinner time.

The next morning, dawn found us well up the hill. Early light hits the Weisshorn in the background.

In the other direction, from left to right are Monte Rosa's Nordend and Dufourspitze, the Liskamm, Castor, Pollux, and the Breithorn.

Larry on the summit of the Rimpfischhorn. If I had stepped just a tad to the left, the Matterhorn would have been in the photo! However I would have ended up about a thousand feet down, on the glacier.