Not all ascents are the same: some are the result of a spontaneous idea, others of a long incubation and a series of perfectly aligned circumstances. My favourites are those that are dreamed of and desired for a long time before they finally come true. The Mischabel traverse is an idea I started nurturing when I first watched “Sur le fil des 4000”, with a certain reverential fear for the documentary’s tragic ending. The alignment of the stars finally comes with Teodoro’s traverse, and so the opportunity must be seized. I head up to Mittelallalin and begin the Alphubel traverse alone, heading toward our rendezvous at the Mischabeljoch bivouac, which I reach as a heavy snowfall begins. Teo has tidied up and cleaned the bivouac, and we prepare by reading the route descriptions that are abundant in our eagle’s nest. But when the alarm rings, the Täschhorn is not visible and everything around us is Patagonian-like, coated in incoherent snow. We go back to sleep, and by morning the sky clears and the sun starts doing its job—at least on the Täschhorn. Slowly the bivouac fills up; there is quite a bit of chaos and sleeping is not easy. 2:30 a.m.: the alarm rings. With carefully measured slowness we set off in “solo together” style and quickly reach the summit of the Täschhorn. There we rope up, thinking of Patrick Berhault, and set off onto the most intimidating ridge I have ever faced. Exposure is maximal; the rock is either smooth and covered in unstable snow or rotten and mixed with soil. We embrace on the summit of the Dom and start running down the normal route to reach the base of the Lenzspitze ridge. Here we meet Jan, a Polish guide with his client (whom we’ve decided to call Robin, though we never confirmed it), who is doing the same traverse as us. The rock quality improves dramatically and we start moving fast. Soon we are in the lead, reaching the summit and then, after a series of towers and gendarmes, the Nadelhorn. The wind has been merciless all day and we decide to drop in altitude to bivouac. We wait for Jan and Robin to say goodbye, then run down the Nadelhorn normal route until the track leaves the glacier. With the first light we have breakfast and prepare a light pack, leaving everything we don’t need in a corner of our platform inside a sleeping bag. Strangely, our legs don’t seem to suffer from the previous day (even though we feel quite drained), and in just under an hour and a half we are back on the Nadelhorn. Just before the Stecknadelhorn we see the storm-battered makeshift bivouac (a small flattened snowy ledge protected with four stones) of Jan and Robin, and we push on decisively toward the Hohberghorn and finally reach the earthy Dirruhorn. We spot our two friends just ahead of us, continuing along the ridge and descending without retracing their steps. We decide to stash the rope to move faster and more efficiently, re-roping only after reaching the Stecknadelhorn. After an excellent Rösti at the Mischabelhütte, we take the endless trail back down to Saas Grund, which—as everyone knows—keeps moving further away as you approach it, just like mountain huts…