03/06/2026
What a way to end an incredible ski season.
Last year I won the photo competition and the headline prize was a two day ski touring trip to Zermatt with , someone I’ve looked up to for a long time in the sport/adventure photography space. So fast forward 8 months and I was on a train to Zermatt, a village that exists entirely in the shadow of the most photographed mountain on earth, ready for this adventure.
Chris arrived last in the evening and after dinner with him, I had a feeling this was going to be a memorable trip. Turns out I wasn’t wrong.
A very leisurely start by mountain standards, a 10am cable up the mountain to start the trip. Skins on, and straight into valley with the Matterhorn north face looming over us the whole way. The snow level was low so it was skis on, skis off but after 3 hours we arrived at Schönbielhütte as the afternoon light hit the eastern face of the Matterhorn. After taking some time to take in the views lying outside the hut I introduced Chris Burkard to Pass the Pigs. This became competitive instantly, ended up taking the victory 5-3 before we headed out to watch sunset over the most majestic of mountains.
Day 2 began with a 5am alarm after a questionable sleep. The bread at breakfast that could legally be classified as a weapon but we got something down and we were off. An Icy start on skis but with the Matterhorn catching the sunrise all you had to do was look up to remind you how cool this was.
Then came the hard part, Skins on again as and we headed up the glacier, after 800m of skinning I’d gone fully non-verbal ,head down, one foot in front of the other, traversing across the glacier under some hefty cornices. After a 6 hour schlep up, we summited Tête Blanche, 3,706m, on the Swiss-Italian border, surrounded by more 4,000m peaks than I’d ever seen, Dent Blanche, Obergabelhorn, Dent d’Hérens all laid out before us.
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