Part 3 - Acclimatisation
Acclimatisation is best completed by working hard and sleeping at altitude then coming down for a period before going back up. We had a week, which isn't long enough to fully acclimatise but some benefit and experience can be gained by spending a day learning basic techniques, followed by a three days high altitude mountaineering before an overnight stop down in the chalet prior to the final two days summit attempt. This was our plan for the week, weather willing which at the moment still looked promising with the temperature well up in the thirties.
We drove to
After a steep scramble down several slippery steel ladders onto glacier we don our ice equipment; axes, harness, helmet and crampons and walk a kilometer or so up the heavily crevassed wet glacier to find a spot to practice some of the skills we will need. The heat of the day is surprising, wearing black clothes was not such a good idea. The rest of the afternoon we spent learning to walk efficiently uphill, downhill, using ice axes to traversing steep ice, climb overhanging ice, short roping techniques, setting ice anchors and belaying. At the end of a surprisingly tiring but fun day we take the train back to town and headed to the Chalet for a wash and hearty meal. Unfortunately Dan was not sure that he's going too do well. The combination of the weight of the rucksacks and equipment, the speed at which it is necessary to move in the Alpine environment and the steepness of the terrain is substantially different to anything he had done before. His experience is apparently common amongst trekkers making the step change to un-portered mountaineering.
Practicing on the Mer du Glace (dont step back into that crevasse !)
Tomorrow we leave for our first three day adventure and I pack and repack my rucksack about twenty times before I'm sure I've lightened the load to the minimum. I still decide to carry my weighty but totally reliable Pentax K1000 camera as my only concession to excess baggage. With Roger and Emmanuel preparing similarly, the small room is littered with climbing apparel but eventually the chaos finds its way into three rucksacks and three neat piles of clothes for the morrow.
We set off in minibus North to Le Tour in anticipation of our first experiences on dry glaciers - where the snow covers the crevasses and the risks become hidden. A huge avalanche engulfed 17 chalets here in Le Tour and neighbouring Montroc on February 9, 1999. Reports said that some of the chalets were literally blown away by the blast of snow tearing down the slopes at more than 100 kph (60 mph). At some places only the concrete foundations were left in place with the avalanche swathe measuring some six meters (20 ft) deep and 200 meters (yards) wide, at least 15 were killed. We will be going up the path of the Avalanche. There's no risk of a repeat event today though, the three days of intense heat since the recent snowfall has helped melt or consolidate the new snow.
There's a two-stage ski lift to Col be Balme (2191) with majestic views past alpine meadows down the valley to Chamonix with the mighty Mont Blanc towering over it like a giant sleeping Yetti. If Julie Andrews was to have suddenly appeared singing for all her heart, not one of us would have thought her out of place. The path contours around to meet the Glacier La Tour, gradually loosing is greenery, butterflies and alpine flowers until it becomes a rocky moraine track by the side of the glacier up to the Albert Premier Refuge (2707), our home for the night.
Robbie explains the niceties of the hut’s boxes to store ones possessions and we all acquire a new and peculiar footwear fashion by swapping mountain boots for rubber slippers in order to tiptoe through the building at night without waking the other 111 sleeping temporary inhabitants of the tiny hut. Massive tea filled cups a sandwich and chocolate bar stiffen our resolve to do some more exercise although gaining more altitude today is not on the agenda. Gaining about 1500m per day is ideal for acclimatisation - any faster and the body is more likely to react badly. Matt is still somewhere back on the path with Dan but neither of them make it to the hut before we eventually decide to burn off lunch.
Steep paths
We spend the afternoon out on the dry glacier with Robbie pointing out identifying signs of where crevasses lay beneath the snow. With long rope coils between us we learned to protect one another crossing the hidden depths and even try some simple rescue techniques by lowering each other into a crevasse and first trying to climb out unaided followed by a very helpful pull on the rope by the others. My 15 stone bulk proved too much even for three trying to pull me out. This was not a comforting exercise for me given that we would be travelling on ropes of three so in the even of a real fall there would only be two companions to rescue me on the same rope. I had visions of all three of us in the icy depths with no way out so Robbie demonstrated some very effective pulley systems build from prussik loops and carabiners. Finally we used our ice axes buried in the heavy wet snow to create anchors. Correctly constructed, the strength that these simple belay points possesed was amazing. On one of these anchors we had four full grown men pulling with all our might and it did not move! It was at this point I understood for the first time some of the criticism leveled at Jo Simpson’s partner Simon Yates during the ill-fated Siula Grande climb in the Peruvian Andes in 1985. Some believe that if Simon had built snow anchors to stabilise the precarious belaying positions adopted while lowering his injured friend the infamous rope cutting decision would not have occurred. At the end of the day freezing conditions and a torturously exhausting lowering session put both their lives at risk and Simon made the only decision that he could at the time. Quite possibly building anchors may have been safer but whether the extra time taken would have had other consequences under the circumstances is anyone’s guess.
Back at the hut, Dan and Matt had arrived. Dan had taken a minor fall on the way up and in spite of our cajoling him to continue; he had decided to head back down to the chalet the following morning and do some slightly less challenging trekking. Dinner consisted of excellent French bread, lentil soup, cheese and stew. After the efforts of the day, watching the sunset over the Aiguille Rouges then bedding down under blankets in the cramped hut was welcome relief, sleep came easily.
to be continued...
