Time to head to Zermatt

After all the preparation and all the training the team is heading to Zermatt today. Thanks to all, particularly Pam and her team at the Haven who have sent us their thoughts and good wishes for the challenge. It's really appreciated.

Everyone should arrive by late evening so the plan is to meet Saturday morning to go over details for our acclimatisation days prior to the Matterhorn ascent that is planned for Thursday 22nd.

Per As, our lead guide has planned for us to head to the Saas Fee valley on Saturday and walk up to a hut so we can spend the night at 3000m. From there we will climb the Weissmies (pictured right) on Sunday, our first 4000m training peak.  We will stay high in a hut again on Sunday night before heading back to Zermatt on Monday. On Tuesday morning we will take the first gondola lift to Klein Matterhorn to do the Traverse of Breithorn, another 4000m peak.

If the weather is ok the plan is to then move up to the Hornli hut on Wednesday afternoon ready for the attempt on the Matterhorn on Thursday.

The weather on the Matterhorn has been good over the last few days as you can see from yesterday's webcam snap below. Most of the snow that fell earlier this week has gone leaving lots of bare rock up to the Solvay hut just below the last very steep section up to the summit.

The forecast however is for the weather to be more unsettled over the weekend and into Monday before clearing up for later in the week.

If that forecast holds that will mean that the weather will be poorer for our training climbs but better for the Matterhorn attempt. We'd definitely prefer it that way around!

We will be watching the forecast carefully and Per has warned us to be flexible and prepared to go for the Matterhorn early if a definite weather window opens up, so watch this space. We will try to keep the blog updated every day as long as we can get a data signal from wherever we are!