UKH

Dearest collective , would you be so kind as to chuck add much beta as you can muster at me for said route ! Approach , descent,  gear,  bivvying,  anything really!  Thank you in advance

I throw in: go light and fast, stay at hut the night before, leave before everyone else in the hut had their coffee, try to reach the last gondola at 4pm, take approach shoes and strap on spikes. Enjoy! 

Exactly the same as Heike has said, except we didn't need spikes - which was fortunate because we didn't take any.

Stay at the hut. Easy chimney pitches are a bit of a scary nightmare with a bag. The harder climbing has loads of pegs. 

The bottom half of the route is easy. When I did it me and my partner just climbed together with 30 metres of rope between us and always at least two bits of gear. We continued like that till pretty close to the half way ledge. 

This only worked as the route was well within both of our leading grades and we were both very evenly matched. We were also first on the route. We started very early. We were actually climbing by 4am. 

Make sure you find the base of the route the evening before. Literally go to the start of it so you know exactly where it is. 

I am not saying you have to move together as it is obviously potentially very dangerous but you definitely need to move pretty quick to do it in a day. 

We were finished by 2pm when we did it.....so still were not that fast. 

Nice one Grist ! We're climbing as a rope of three so will be bivvying.  Our intention is to hit the midway ledge close to sundown then get on it super early the next day.  

With regards to the descent am I going to the top cable car or the mid station ? 

I have never got the cable car down. I walked down both times....even though one time we could have taken the cable car. The glacier is ok.....you do get wet feet though. You have to do a couple of abseils to get to it. We also had to jump a crevasse on the way down. So I would not want to do it at night. 

There are some caves you can bivvy in above the hut or if you keep walking to the ridge there is a red bivouac shelter. We stayed there but it was busy one night with walkers. It is free but technically you are supposed to use it for emergencies only. Be careful where you leave your car at the start of the walk up. I got a parking fine the first time for parking above the camp site. 

What's the gear like on the route and would you say the grading is accurate,  I've seen quite a few discrepancies in opinion.