The Haute Route as a Prelude

I am starting to view the March Haute Route adventure as an exciting warmup for a life-long dream of climbing the Matterhorn in winter. My original goal decades ago was - is - the Schmidt North Face route, it may be out of my range however, so let's do the Hornli Ridge instead! (One thing for sure, we will not see this queue in March ... click on the photograph to enlarge the image.)