Britannia Hut and the Allalinhorn

Because we had stayed in Saas Grund for the night we were given a Burgener pass, which allowed us free transport within the valley for one day, so we left the car in Saas Grund and got the bus up to Saas Fee. From there we caught the Felskinn teleferique and walked to the Britannia Hut, which was only about 45 mins. We headed to the glacier in the afternoon to look at the beginning of our route for the morning and do some safety training.

The Britannia Hut was’t quite as good as the Almagellar, but still great for an Alpine hut in the mountains! I’ve stayed in it a couple of times before when I was younger, it has been extended and modernised over the years to accommodate the number of people visiting.

The next day we woke at 4am with a plan for breakfast, but there was a foot of fresh snow outside, so we went back to bed till 7am breakfast. We walked back to the Felskinn teleferique and took the Metro Alpin to the top station, from there we walked to the summit of Allalinhorn (4027m) on the ordinary route, it took us about 3 hours. Then we went back down to Saas Grund to pick up the car, and we were lucky enough to be able to take a quick shower in the B & B where we had stayed, before we drove round to Chamonix.

Almagellar Hut – Dri Hornli and Weissmies

We flew EasyJet from Edinburgh to Geneva, then hired a car from the French side of the airport as it is considerably cheaper.

It was our aim to summit Mont Blanc at the end of our trip, so we had to get acclimatised by doing some climbing and walking at altitude. We also planned to spend quite a few nights in huts along the way, allowing our bodies to get used to the altitude.

From Geneva we drove to Saas Grund and walked up to the Almageller Hut. It was a lovely 4 hour walk that included a short Via Ferrata section.

On our first day at the Almageller Hut we did a route called Dri Hornli, which was graded 4A obligatory. It took us roughly 5 hours round trip. The weather forecast had been for rain and it was spot on, there had been some lenticular clouds hanging around all morning. The rain came shortly after we got back to the hut.

The facilities and catering at the hut were great! We were able to get hot water for tea whenever we wanted and the breakfasts and dinners we had were fantastic! This is one of the few huts with good running water, which is taken from the streams and glaciers nearby, then cleaned for use.

Our second day at the hut and we had a 5am breakfast. (The reason for the early start was to get started on the route before the sun came up and began to soften the snow pack). We put on our head torches and headed to the Weissmies (4023m), which is a walk, followed by a rocky ridge climb to a short snow walk to the summit at 11:30. We descended the snow fields of the Weissmies, which meant avoiding huge crevasse and ceracs down to the Hohsaas Hut for lunch by 13:30.

There are a number of cable cars and lifts in the Saas Valley which allow you to ascend and descend without much effort from some of the routes. We took the Kreuzboden gondolas back down to the valley and a had coffee in Saaser Cafe Backerei.

Our plan was to go up to the Britannia Hut the next day, so we stayed at Pension Heino B&B for the night and had a very tasty meal at the Robi hotel restaurant.