Rob Maloney, who always seems to have good luck with the weather, joined Mark for six days of climbing in Switzerland. As luck would have it, his visit coincided with certainly the hottest and some of the best weather of the summer.

With a general goal that included the Matterhorn, this good news indeed. The summer of 2011 has been a tough year for the Matterhorn, with most of July and the first half of August being cold, snowy and stormy.

Feeling the need to get a bit of acclimatization under our belts, and to loosen up the old mountaineering muscles, we started with the Breithorn's Half Traverse. Here's Rob on the first big step, which we climbed direct via a couple hardish rock pitches.

With the Matterhorn in the best condition so far this summer, and a good weather forecast, we decided to head up to the hut on day 2. This view shows the Matterhorn from Zermatt.

Hiking up to the Hörnli hut.

We arrived at the hut with plenty of time for a good rest and to also wander up the lower part of the route.

A 4 am breakfast and out the door at 4:30. We made good time in the predawn dark arriving at the Solvay bivouac hut just before sunrise. This is a photo of a climber moving up the Upper Moseley Slab with the first rays of the sun on the rocks above.

Looking the other direction as the sun peeks over the Rimpfischhorn.

At the Solvay bivouac hut. Time for a quick bite to eat.

Higher on the route. Here, we are at the Shoulder, looking up at the section of fixed ropes.

Very close to the summit now. Monte Rosa in the background.

Rob on the summit of the Matterhorn.

After our climb of the Matterhorn, not wanting to simply rest on our "laurels", we spent a relatively leisurely day 4 rock climbing in the sun on the South Face of the Riffelhorn. Here Rob is enjoying one of the several good pitches of the route called "Kante".

The Matterhorn from the summit of the Riffelhorn.

Another view from the summit of the Riffelhorn.

Move the scroll bar for the panorama.

With more reasonably good weather in the forecast, we again took advantage of the good climbing conditions and moved on to Grindelwald and the Eiger's Mittellegi Ridge.

Here, we are "approaching" the hut, climbing a couple pitches of bolted rock, to reach the somewhat easier climbing leading to the hut.

The Eiger's Mittellegi Ridge, rising from the hut.

A few clouds at sunrise on our climb of the Mittellegi Ridge. Though there were quite a few clouds about that day, they never seemed to coalesce into the forecast afternoon thunderstorms.

Looking towards the Mönch at dawn.

Rob, and the Grindelwald Valley far below.

Another view from the Mittellegi Ridge.

The Mönch, as seen from the summit of the Eiger.

Mouse over the photo to see the "descent" route.

Looking east, back along our ridge or ascent from the summit.

One last photo of the Eiger from near the Eigerjoch. The Mittellegi Ridge is the right skyline. Our route of descent was the South Ridge, coming from the peak, towards us.