In July 1998 I met a friend, Craig Carter, in Europe to climb the Matterhorn and Mont Blanc, and to tour around. We didn't summit either the Matterhorn or Mont Blanc, but had lots of fun anyway. Here are some pictures of the mountains.

Here's a gondola that takes you from Zermatt in the valley to the mountain ridge. No grueling approach hikes here! We climbed the Breithorn, in the back left, and the Klein Matterhorn, in the back right. We know these gondolas can hold 50 normal people or 60 Japanese each with a camera and tourist hat.

This is Craig and me on the summit of the Breithorn near Zermatt Switzerland. It is the easiest 4000m peak in the Alps according to the guide book. We made it more challenging by staying up all night the night before. It worked.

Descending the Breithorn. The clouds opened up for a minute to allow a picture. We stumbled less on the steep parts.

Here we are heading up to the Hornli hut on the Matterhorn, seen in the background.

The Matterhorn with the Hornli ridge facing us.

Here's Craig while scouting our route on the Matterhorn. We should have scouted about 3000 ft higher. Routefinding is the hardest part of climbing the Hornli ridge. The guides purposefully don't mark the trails so they can get more business. The exposure was also a shock to us.

Zermatt Switzerland is under the cotton. This was during our climb of the Matterhorn.

Climbing up the Hornli ridge. The Japanese guy in the yellow summmitted the next day. We turned around because we were going slow and were preoccupied with living. That thought never occurred to our Australian buddy Scott (not pictured).

Zermatt, Switzerland in the valley.

The main square in Chamonix, France. The mountains in the back are, left to right, Mont Blanc du Tacul (I think) , Mont Maudit, and Mont Blanc far in the back.

Tents pitched on the saddle between Aguille du Midi and Mont Blanc du Tacul. They are dug down below the level of the snow to protect from the high winds that whip across the saddle.

The yak route up Mont Blanc du Tacul.

This is the bergschrund on Mont Blanc du Tacul. We climbed it instead of Mont Blanc because we had altitude headaches. Our schedule then allowed one more day to try Mont Blanc. When we awoke the next day the weather was bad, with high winds and lots of fog so we didn't go.

This is the upper wall of the bergschrund on Mont Blanc du Tacul. There are some fixed ropes here which were helpful.

A crevasse we passed on our way up Mont Blanc du Tacul.

On the summit of Mont Blanc du Tacul

The hut sitting in the rocks is the Refuge des Cosmiques. First class place. For US$50 you get a three course dinner prepared by French cooks, breakfast, and a nice bunk with wool blankets and pillows. With those accomodations, we found it hard to go outside and climb.

Alpenglow on Mont Blanc du Tacul

Here are some lenticular clouds on peaks seen from Refuge des Cosmiques

The same peaks nearing sunset.