Successful Summiting of The Dom

On 10/08/12 Matt and I successfully summited The Dom, Switzerland’s second highest mountain at 4545m. I won’t pretend it wasn’t hard in fact it was the hardest thing that I’ve ever done and I was totally exhausted. We chose to climb the Festigrat route graded at PD+ which was a lot of fun although exhausting. Image

Image

ImageImageImageImage

This is where the flag will (hopefully) be in two weeks time. Fingers crossed.

The Dom

The Dom is a mountain in the Pennine Alps above Saas Fee in the canton ofValais. With its 4,545 m (14,911 ft) summit it is the third highest peak in the Alpsand the second highest in Switzerland. The Dom is the summit of the Mischabelrange, the highest massif lying entirely in Switzerland.

Image

The Dom is the culminating point of a chain running from Schwarzberghorn on the south, at the intersection with the main chain of the Alps ( Alpine watershed ), to the Seetalhorn on the north and ending above the town of Stalden.

Many high summits are located within a few kilometers from the Dom. To the north lies the Nadelgrat, composed of the LenzspitzeNadelhorn and Stecknadelhorn. The Nadelgrat is easily visible from the north and gives the massif its characteristic pitchfork appearance. The second highest peak of the massif, the Täschhorn to the south, culminates at 4,491 metres. In total eight summits above 4,000 metres are located in the Mischabel range.[3]

Generally, areas above 3,000 metres are covered by glaciers, the two largest being the Ried situated at the foot of the Nadelgrat and theFee, at the foot of the Dom itself, below the east face. Mt. Dom is a depositional mountain.

The two valleys separated by the range are the Mattertal on the west and theSaastal on the east. The towns ofRanda and Saas Fee lie six kilometres from the summit (to the west and the east, respectively).

Since the Dom is not on the main Alpine chain, the rivers flowing on both the west and east side of the massif end up in the same major river, theRhone. The Dom is the highest mountain in the Alps with this peculiarity.

Blog Updates!

Here at NeverDescend we have a brilliant team that we will be working with. There are still more to add over the next few days. Check out the Team page to get to know them.x

New Tools!!!!

We finally got the sewing machine that we’ve been in desperate need of. Boulder mats, chalk bags, rope bags and lots of other lovely new stuff to follow.NeverDescendImage