We set off from the hut, and after a short ascent over dry rocks, we entered their snowy version.

Soon afterwards, we reached the glacier, which leads into the cirque dominated by Lenzspitze and Nadelhorn.

Our goal was the northern face of the former, with an incline of about 50 degrees. After crossing the flat cirque, we climbed towards the crevasse below the wall. There are several places to cross it, but we ultimately decided to approach it directly.

Up close, there’s about an 80 cm vertical gap between the snowy slope and the glacier above—difficult but possible to overcome.

Adam starts first—he steps with his left foot onto my ice axe I’m holding horizontally and with his right foot on a 120 cm loop attached to an ice screw above, then he drives his ice axes into the glacier. The beginning is nearly vertical, but after a few meters, the glacier starts to slope. Adam brings me up, and from there, I lead.

The wall is long—we move on a rope, always ensuring we have one screw between us. I place screws into the vertical ice flows that crisscross the wall while walking on a thin layer of firn over hard ice.

It seems the conditions could be better, but we manage. It's a pity that my ice axes are "Tatras"—they're not tapered and aren’t even sharpened :(

Though it’s not high, the wall seems endless, but eventually, we reach the ridge—just in time for the last views, as clouds are rolling in...

In a few minutes, we reach the true summit of Lenzspitze. Then it’s a quick descent, and we begin the ridge. A long ridge...

We have a few cams and loops—protection is good, but the pace is rather slow. In two more difficult spots, I secure Adam from above, but we proceed on a rope. Snow has covered the rocks, so we’re moving in crampons.

After a very long time, we reach the pass between the peaks—so after all those towers we climbed up and down, we still need to gain about 100 meters in height? It turns out we do—fortunately, we don’t lose much elevation anymore, and we can finally see the cross on the summit of Nadelhorn.

It’s not typical that to descend from a lower peak (Lenzspitze, 4294 m), you have to traverse to a higher summit (Nadelhorn, 4327 m). If I remember correctly, such a situation only occurs in the Mont Blanc massif, where you do this after summiting the peaks on the southern face—Aiguille Blanche de Peuterey, the Great Corner Pillar, Pic Luigi Amadeo, Mont Brouillard, Punta Baretti... But all these peaks are still just plans, dreams...

Now, however, we are on the familiar Nadelhorn. Four years earlier, I had climbed it with Janek while doing Nadelgrat—it was also a solid effort—we went in the opposite direction than usual, wandered around the glacier that isn't normally traversed, and I had to circle the entire massif by buses for 2 hours to retrieve the car...

Now we only have to descend to the hut. The trail is partially broken, but beyond Windjoch (3850 m), there’s no trace anymore. With visibility down to 30 meters, it would be very easy to get lost in this vast, relatively flat glacial cirque where we started... Technology comes to the rescue—and the track on my watch leads us reliably!

At the hut, Adam says he doesn’t have the strength to descend today, but agrees to let me head down. We chat a bit more with some friendly Dutch people, but it’s 19:10, and it’s time to go down so that we can still catch a bit of sunlight on the ridge secured with chains and anchors.

I almost succeed—though I have to turn on my headlamp, I manage the difficulties fairly smoothly. But even after getting off the technical sections, there’s still a long way down. I report back at the camper at 22:00, eat something, and quickly fall asleep!

The next day, I work, and Adam comes down to me at 10:00. After breakfast, we head to meet Janek.

The trip was much more exhausting than I thought, but the next four-thousander is on the list, and the memories are rich!

(Polish version on Strava:   / strava  )