A quick update tonight.
As you will all know today has been an enforced rest day so we have all made the most of it by not doing too much but spending some of the day above 3000m to continue improving our altitude acclimatisation.
John, Andrew, Will and their support team all headed back to the Klein Matterhorn glacier with two of our guides, Per and Christian. While the guys went for a gentle stroll and coffee, the guides took the wives and children off for walk on the glacier.
The guides ended up taking them on a two hour hike over the border in to Italy!
The Tims, Kevin and Malcolm headed up the iconic Gornergrat train to the viewing station above the Gorner glacier.
At the top they joined in with the other visitors and took several hundred more photos of the Matterhorn. Somehow it doesn't look quite so big in the photos!
Whilst up there, they bumped in to Jonatan one of our Swedish guides. He had also decided to go up to the top of the Gornergrat but had walked up the 1600 vertical metres to the top. Not very restful!
Tim W and Kevin walked with Jonatan down to the next railway stop for lunch. Tim D took the train as he was wearing flipflops to help a blistered foot to heal. Malcolm ever the gentleman insisted on accompanying him.
After lunch the Tim's, Kevin and Malcolm headed for the train while Jonatan insisted he would walk the two hours back down to Zermatt. Kevin found some entertainment while waiting for the train.
Tonight we met at the bar in the Hotel Poste for a quick beer - or ice tea in Malcolm's case - and a last briefing from Per. There we met another guide - Marco - another experienced guide friend of Per's who has just arrived from Cortina to join the guiding team.
Tomorrow we will meet at the lift station at 11am with our kit for the stay in the Hornli hut and the climb. We are will take the bubble to Schwarzee then walk gently up to the hut. It should take us about two and a half hours plus a stop for a quick sandwich half way.
Once up at the hut Per wants us to climb the first 30 minutes of the ridge so we will know what to expect in the dark at 4:30am Friday. He has warned us that the first bit will be quite pressured and stressful as there is a fixed rope just above the hut that everyone has to take. This causes an immediate bottle neck on the climb with all 90 climbers from the hut bunched together and queuing to get past.
We have been told not to take anything we don't need, to sleep in our climbing kit and to not bother with breakfast so we don't waste any precious minutes in the morning.
Positively, Per thinks there is a good chance we could all make it to the top and he is going to try to keep as many of us together on the climb as he can. Fingers crossed.
We will try to do another update from the hut tomorrow night but it will depend on 3G coverage and mobile phone battery charge - there is no electricity for climber's mobiles in the hut. We'll obviously update on Friday as soon as we have energy and possibly can.
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