Part 4 - From France to Switzerland
It was still dark and well below freezing when we head to breakfast at 5am. Crossing the 30 meters from the dormitory to the dining room is bracing but altogether exciting, like the first time you wake up in a tent at camp as a child. Masses of honey cake and tea later we struggle with numb fingers and small spots of light from our head torches to get dressed on the balcony. Matt is already puffing his second roll up of the day as if to complete his image of an alpine climber.
The dawn is breaking as we start the climb around the back of the hut to start to gain height before heading out onto the the Glacier du Tour, this time not to practise but to climb it and cross into
The cold is soon forgotten as my body heats up with the exercise and my crampons bite with satisfying crunches into the hard neve. The snow slope is about 20 degrees and by the time we reach a small plateau at 3100m I'm puffing crazily. The thin air is taking its toll and I'm finding it very hard to breath enough to get my body to work. Five minutes rest and we're off again to the base of a steep snow slope at about 3220m. Slipping off our rucksacks we front point up the 30-40 degree slope to the base of the summit rocks. Leaving our crampons on the ice, Matt leads off up the grade 1 scramble to the top of the peak. The rock is clean, solid and has superb friction. The scramble is literally breathtaking and the summit of Petit Fourche (3512m) is suddenly under my feet with the peaks of
Roger on the summit of Le Petit Fourche
While we were on the summit a small single engine plane buzzed around the peaks and then gently landed on the glacier below us, it turned and slipped down the slope picking up revs to take off once again. It did this three or four times before heading off to some other part of the range to practice its ice landing skills.
Returning to our rucksacks we truned North East to head off in the direction of the hut but our way was soon barred by a 20 meter ice cliff. One exhilarating and spectacular abseil later and we are on the Plateau du Trient and plodding toward the swiss cabane in time for lunch. On the way my stomach is rumbling and almost in unison the effects of combined altitude and last nights lentil soup let rip from all of us. Hilarity follows as we perfect the art of group synchonisation of rear fire trumpeting with almost sufficient power to cause a minor avalanche.
abseil down the ice cliff
At the hut I can hardly move. It takes me fifteen minutes to take my boots off and get into more comfortable clothes. The altitude is really making just moving around difficult. Robbie suggests that Matt leads the afternoons 'games' down on the bergschrund below the hut. Its a 30m deep overhanging gouge the sun has melted from the glacier in front of the rock buttress that the hut is perched upon. At the bottom a frozen green lake protects the rock wall from attempts to scramble back to the hut the direct route. Reluctantly I agree to join the others but as the afternoon wears on I get more and more accustomed to the altitude until by evening I'm feeling quite fit again.
We spent the afternoon perfecting snow belays using ice axes and carving bollards. Matt set various challenges including building sophisticated crevasse rescue pulley systems, prusiking up the ice wall, climbing the ice wall with two walking axes and finally climbing the overhanging snow wall again with two axes. This last event was incredibly frustrating and simulated breaking through a deep cornice on a ridge. Something I shall do everything in my power to avoid doing now I realise how energy sapping climbing such steep snow is. The only comparison is to try to imagine climbing a vertical wall of sand that crumbles away with every effort to gain height. By supreme effort I finally topped out, Matt later said he pegged that moment as the one when he knew I would not give up when it counted. On he way back up to the hut for supper, Steve did some fine demonstrations of ice axe arrests which we all greatly appreciated but did not try to emulate through sheer fatigue.
climbing the bergschrund
Following an excellent supper we agree to an early start to cover sufficient ground tomorrow before the heat of the day makes glacier travel unsafe. At this point its worth noting that the Swiss hut was exceptionally well appointed, clean, friendly and the food was superb. However a Mars bar set me back €2.50 and a cheese sandwich for the next day's travel was €8.00. I suppose there wasn't a lot of competition nearby and delivery charges must be a bitch.
Next morning all us clients are gathered for breakfast at 4am at planned but there was no sign of our guides. Not wishing to be the unpopular client that went and woke up the sleeping professionals none of us were eager to volunteer to get Robbie and Matt. Eventually, I crept into the overcrowded room where the guides sleep and shone my headlamp around trying to identify our leaders. In repose, in the dark, without climbing glasses and snuggled up in sleeping bags everyone looked the same, this was going to be impossible. Luckily Matt stirred and recognised me and our early morning start was back on the tracks.
Eventually set off around 5am back across the Plateau heading slightly right of yesterday's route toward the Aiguille du Tour (3529) with a sunrise summit planned. The stars were out and there was a stillness in the air that was incredibly peaceful. We teamed up into two ropes, Matt leading followed by Steve and then me on one rope and Roger, Emmanuel and Robbie on the other.
Plateau du Trient Sunrise
There was a distinct difference in style between Robbie the more experienced guide and the more eager aspirant Matt. While Robbie would adopt a steady alpine plod, Matt would storm off, then rest briefly before storming off on the next leg. We rapidly pulled ahead of Robbie’s rope but my energy was being sapped by the quick bursts. After 40 minutes or so the tortoise overtook the hare and in traditional story book fashion summited first. It later transpired that Matt was one of the
Matt is also a rock climber and we had been discussing favourite routes such as Three Pebble Slab and Christmas Curry. He was constantly scanning the rock walls around us and increasing our distance to the summit by detouring to inspect anything that looked like it might offer a good climbing line. Not that I minded, any excuse for a breather was very welcome.
To get to up the final rock pinnacle we gingerly crossed a particularly fragile looking snow bridge over a deep crevasse. One by one and belaying each other as we crossed/ Once over we took off our crampons and scramble directly up the dry rock and employing a couple of nice feeling climbing moves, our alpine boots finding tiny rock wrinkles to edge on and tiny incuts just perfect for gloved fingers and reminiscent of Tremadog. It turned out this was the first time Steve had scrambled and was finding it a bit nerve racking stepping out onto tiny knobs of rock even though we was secured by rope to Matt above and me below. Nevertheless he made a sterling effort and fought back the fear to make a good clean ascent. Personally I prefer not to scramble using a rope and kept finding it getting in the way but the going was good and it felt great to have my hands on the rock. It proved to be a good exercise to practice a little of the ‘moving together’ technique that is commonly used in the
Matt on the Aiguille du Tour
The sun had arisen while we were scrambling and the summit view was spectacular. We were well above the clouds and could see forever. I didn’t want to go down but we were on a mission to get back to the chalet for tonight was the last night in the valley before we attempt
Back on the glacier and the others had gone ahead and were no where to be seen, Matt had telephone call with girfriend (a climber on the Army team) who had just arrived in
We headed back to meet up with the others at the Albert Premier hut for a quick tea and bite of lunch before catching the ski tow back to La Tour. By the time we arrived at La Tour, the others had headed back to the Chalet so we found the nearest bar and had a well earner beer. I reslished in telling the barman of our first adventure - he seemed genuinely impressed so obviously was a good actor.
The mini bus picked us up an hour later and Roger, Emmanuel and I hot-tubbed the evening and our aches away with the magnificent
To be continued...
