Schreckhorn
| Schreckhorn |
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The Schreckhorn (4,078 m) is a mountain in the Aarmassif in the Bernese Alps.
The first ascent was on 16 August 1861 by Leslie Stephen, Ulrich Kaufmann, Christian Michel and Peter Michel. Their route of ascent, via the upper Schreck Couloir to the Schrecksattel and then by the south-east ridge, was the normal route for the following fifty years, but is now seldom used.
The peak had been attempted several times before this, most notably by the Swiss naturalist Joseph Hugi in 1828 (the Schreckhorn's Hugisattel is named after him) and the guided party of Pierre Jean Édouard Desor (a Swiss geologist) in 1842. 'The ambition of hoisting the first flag on the Schreckhorn, the one big Bernese summit which was untrodden, was far too obvious for us to resist', Desor later wrote, but they climbed a secondary summit of the Lauteraarhorn by mistake.
The first ascent by the south-west ridge (AD+) – the normal route by which the Schreckhorn is climbed – was by an unguided British party comprising Edward Branby, John Wicks and Claude Wilson on 26 July 1902. The north-west ridge (the Andersongrat, AD) was first climbed by John Stafford Anderson and George Percival Baker, with guides Ulrich Almer and Aloys Pollinger on 7 August 1883.
The Strahlegg Hut, destroyed by an avalanche, has been replaced by the Schreckhorn Hut (2,520 m). The Schreckhorn may also be ascended from the Gleckstein Hut (2,317 m) and the Lauteraar Hut (2,392 m).
References
- Dumler, Helmut and Willi P. Burkhardt, The High Mountains of the Alps, London: Diadem, 1994
- Engel, Claire: Mountaineering in the Alps, London: George Allen and Unwin, 1971
Further reading
- Smythe, Frank S., 'A Storm on the Schreckhorn', in Peaks, Passes and Glaciers, ed. W. Unsworth, London: Allen Lane, 1981. An attempt on the south-west ridge in 1925.
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