The troops were feeling a bit worse for wear on Sunday morning. The weather was variable with strong winds out of the west. Our stuff was still damp from the night before which didn't make things better. Our objective was the Finsteraarhorn hut. This was quite near, so we hoped to get there early, drop off our excess gear, and ski something interesting close to the hut. As ever, our European cousins were off early, travelling like ants for the mind-numbingly boring slog up to the Hollandia hut.
The snow on the way up, whilst a little wind blown (W facing glacier), looked quite inviting. To make things entertaining, we had the company of the Japanese Ski-Mountaineering Club on the ascent to the pass.
On the other side, with the sun peaking through, the snow was very good, though the slope angle was a bit on the low side.
Ditching the juicy looking Weisshorn, we went straight to the hut with lunch on our minds. This proved to be an absolutely inspired choice. The hut was spacious, clean, had indoor toilets, and even better, single bunks. Things surely couldn't get any better. One Rosti later, they certainly were! During lunch we heard that another group had failed on a Finsteraarhorn attempt that morning, turning around about halfway after the guide had triggered a slide. Since the route up went straight from the hut, Nelson, Tyson and I went to check it out. On the way up, we did notice a significant amount of cross loading on the lee-side of some of the gullies - presumably what the other group had experienced. The combination of daytime heating and the Rostis were certainly affecting our ability to climb, so we turned around about 1,500' above the hut. The snow on the way down, whilst sticky, was quite good.
We managed to trigger one slide about 500' above the hut on a steep roll-over. It was about 150' wide and just ran in the now warm new snow. Inspired by all this, I went back for my second Rosti.