In reply to Quosco: The N face varies in difficulty massively depending on conds - ie from TD (ScIV + poor belays - many solo it in tandem) when covered in styrofoam neve/ice, to E Baa Gum + totally nails when buried in unconsolidated snow. Crossy + I climbed it a couple of summers ago at the end of August expecting the former + getting the latter. (We were so confident - & entirely wrong! - about conds that we only took one 50m rope (ie no way down) + threw out every thing - spare clothes, bivi kit, waterproofs, the lot. 26hrs later we discovered that 2 mars bars and a can of red bull isn't optimal kit choice for climbing the Matterhorn).
As for when the face comes in good nick nowadays, that's anybodies guess - autumn or spring just after a dump brought in by a mild atlantic weather system, or a week or two after a dump of snow + some good weather? (that's just the kind of weather pattern there's been in the Alps over the last 2-3 weeks though + it didn't look too good on Wednesday when I was in Zermatt, so god knows!). Either way I'd take a good selection of blades, a spectre or two for banging into rubble + plenty of abb tat just in case.
Cheers now,
Al P
