UKC

Anyone know what mixed climbing conditions are like atm? I'm looking to do some mixed faces in the eiger & matterhorn region for 2 weeks from the start of April.

Any info on this year's conditions would be much appreciated!

Thanks,

Euan

The 1938 Route (ED2)

Much drier than usual for this time of year. Faces that are often covered in snow are bullet hard ice. That may change next week though.

Thanks - will keep an eye on the forecast next week.

James Price has just climbed the Eiger, maybe contact him for conditions.

cheers - i'll get in touch

Hi Euan. We climbed the 1938 Route last week. It was pretty dry with lots of black ice on the snowfields making for hard going, and lots of drytooling / thin ice climbing. I wouldnt say its in prime nick but it was our first winter alpine trip and we managed to get up it so I'm sure you can too! Just bare in mind that the descent is a bit patchy at the moment, we considered pushing though the night but I'm really glad we didnt as theres a bit of route finding required. Best of luck on your trip.

Thanks Will. I bumped into Iain on the Ben yesterday and he described pretty much that. Thanks for the descent tip and  congrats on climbing the route! Sounded hard!

mixed conditions are pretty poor atm and are unlikely to change any time soon. i think its going to be a bit of a poor summer too at this rate sadly. we hava had a number of hot dry summers and now this autumn-winter has been super dry. unless things get very wet soon, even more classics are going to fall down at this rate.

We had exactly the same thought, if its this dry now surely this summer will be really bad