The Brunegghorn summit cross is close now

I'm leading the fourth and steepest pitch on the north face. Right below the top there are a lot of rocks on the face. It's above freezing, and occasionally one of them comes whizzing past us on its way down. Lower down, where there are few rocks in the ice and the face is wider, we stayed away from the fall line to avoid that risk, but near the summit the ice was more and more larded with rocks, so I aimed for the NE ridge shortly before the summit. As you can see, the cross isn't far away anymore. Although Jan shouts from below that I still have 10 m or rope left, not enough for the summit but more than enough to reach the ridge, I have no idea if I can create a belay up there, so instead I build one on the ice of the N face a few meters below it. And once I'm secure, I can finally take pictures again, something I had not done for a quite while because my hands were too busy holding on to my ice tools. 6 July 2014.