Cleaving the symmetric East and West Faces of the Tooth, the Wandfluegrat arcs upwards, razor-sharp. The tremendous ridge leads to the summit of La Dent Blanche and for a long time, my fantasy of ascending it existed outside of everything else in my life.

In July of 2019, I was in Val d’Herens, Switzerland. I’d just finished a climb in the Aiguilles Rouges d’Arolla, to acclimatise. Glancing in the direction of the Grand Dent de Veisivi, I watched evening clouds slowly clearing to uncover a ruby mountaintop aglow. The Tooth towered above everything in sight, crystalline and gigantic. A mountain above innumerable mountains. Silently, gracefully, after sunset it returned to its avalanching, white permanence.

La Dent Blanche shining red

A week later, with two friends and a tent, I left to climb the Tooth. Following forest tracks down from Arolla, we made it to a single track road that cut through pine forest up towards the glacial moraines of Ferpècle and Mont Mine. Cold air from a high névé plateaux whistled down through these trees to where the path to the mythical Dent Blanche begins.

The approach is legendary among climbers for its relentless sixteen hundred metres of ascent and beauty. Out of the forest, it first meanders up through alpine meadows, fleetingly illuminated with the brightest of colours: Gentiana verna blues, violets, reds and small yellow adonises. In the summer afternoon light, these wildflowers bloomed in a sea of sun hot meditation. I followed their path in my own kind of meditation and the horizon ahead soon framed a view of the Tooth ending two thousand meters above me, its upper reaches plastered with snow and atmospheric ice.

Met by an aging metal sign pointing us towards the Bivouac au Col de la Dent Blanche, I left the well-worn trail. I wasn’t hoping to reach the haven of the shelter, since it now finds itself vulnerable to the impending collapse of glacial ice and the second law of thermodynamics. My friends and I were just looking to find somewhere flat to pitch the tent.

What started as curiosity soon drew me in. A powerful force, emanating from the mountain, compelled me upwards and closer to the Tooth. Galvanising each hard earned metre with a gradual reveal of the icy amplitude of the West Face, its undeniable magnetism had already moved me a thousand kilometres, from the fantasies born of staring at computer screens in England to becoming the realisation of the dreams: standing, wide-eyed and awestruck, beneath the mountain itself.

The big mouth of sky above us darkened, so we cleared a platform among the rocks and stones, and rolled out our sleeping bags. Above us, the stars began to freeze over.

Streams ran in torrents down the mountainside and as the rain began, the sound of their water became louder. Before long, lightning illuminated the tent. The high voltage flashes, closely followed by the godawful cracking of thunderclouds, tore through the atmosphere.

Inside the thin nylon walls of the tent, I had no illusions of safety. My nerves were charged with energy and I was ready to explode in the form of one great heroic action. Yet, there was nowhere for the energy to go, the mountainside was too treacherous to descend.

The water kept rushing by and there was no telling whether we would be washed down the mountainside too; some moments in life simply have to be endured and deep down I could only pray that we didn’t become the next cathode for a great river of current.

Closely packed together, we lay with our sleeping bags head to toe. And with no space to move, we squirmed uneasily and sunk deeper into our bags…

A great surge of electricity hit. And our tightly bound lives shook in its thunder-clap. The right-hand side of the tent lit up, a point just beneath us on the mountainside had been struck.

We lay still…existing in the same mad universe as the lightning and thunder… And seemingly endless hours passed by as the pulsing clouds moved over the Tooth… gradually storming into the distance.

The next morning, I stepped out of the tent and felt grateful. The sky was no longer frightening and the air felt soft. Bright sunlight shone on the Tooth as its ice gleamed sapphire blue.

The West Face of La Dent Blanche

Within a couple of hours, we had retraced our steps and regained the well-worn trail; the morning sun encouraged us upwards, towards the Wandfluegrat. After crossing cold streams and passageways of loose rock, we stopped beside a pool of glacial melt that seemed to radiate luminescence, as though a source of light lay deep beneath its surface. Above the mirrory pool, steep snowfields glistened, interspersed with honeycombed ribs of ice. Higher still, the summit loomed against a smouldering blue sky, snow capped and far away.

The morning sun had softened the snowfields, so we dug deep, watery tracks up the mountainside. Every measured step reminded us of the weight of our backpacks and, at 3500m, we decided to pitch the tent. We were soon enveloped by cloud and hidden. From then on, time passed slowly, until the sun cleared a view to an unreachable distance.

I spent the afternoon melting snow and watching satellite imagery, hoping that the south-facing ridge would soon be free of the verglas formed by the thunderstorm. As dusk unfurled for the evening, two climbers appeared like mythical beings on the glacier. I sparked up a conversation with the pair, Domi and Gregor, who were also ready for an attempt on the Wandfluegrat. After agreeing on 4.30 am as a good time to start, we wished each other the best and the mountains began to blackout. The danger of what lay ahead put a special burn on the sunset and its fiery embers glowed with promise.

The first night spent at 3500m

The next morning, our ascent began over shattered rock, before continuing over a snowy glacial plateau towards the sunrise shining yellow in the distance. Across a cavernous valley, I could see great beams of light striking the Matterhorn, burning its summit red, before plating its ridges with gold.