Monte Rosa (4,634m–15,204ft) 4 August 2007

French version here

Monte Rosa is the second highest mountain in the Alps, just 160m shorter than the Mont Blanc. It is situated at the border between Switzerland and Italy. Its immense glacier when glowing pink in the sunset is a beacon that, on a clear day, can be seen from the Southern Alps near the Mediterranean sea, more than 200 miles away. All throughout my childhood, skiing there, I could admire this imposing mountain from the ski slopes, not knowing that I would climb it one day. Although not particularly difficult technically, the challenge of this climb is the high altitude, the cold and the wind.

From the end of July we closely monitored the weather forecast. We needed a window of at least 3 days of perfect weather to attack the climb. As the beginning of August was looking good, we called the Rifugio Gnifetti on the Italian slopes of the Monte Rosa to reserve for the night of the 3^rd . However, we were not the only ones to have the idea of climbing this mountain on this date, as it is very popular and everybody monitors the same weather forecast! Only 7 berths were left, we reserved them all.

Gnifetti is a monumental hut, one of the highest in Europe (3,647m – 11,965ft) first built in 1876 but reconstructed, widened and modernised several times. It now holds 250 people in the summer and 15 in the winter. It is like a huge factory clinging half to the rocks, half to the glacier. Everyone who has slept there has a story to tell. We were warned about the bad and expensive food, the noise and commotion that would prevent us from sleeping etc.. But I was more anxious about the climb than about the hut.

On Friday I left around 11am to drive to Villaroger where we were all to meet to drive to Italy by the Col du Petit St Bernard. We arrived at Gressoney (Vallee d’Aoste, in Italy) around 3pm and took two cable cars to shorten the pre-climb. Actually the pre-climb, even deducting the cable-car bit that we skipped, is long enough with heavy rucksacks on. I had lightened mine as much as possible, as usual, even sawing off half of the handle of my toothbrush to lighten it by a few grammes, but still the equipment (ice axe, harness, crampons and ropes) is quite heavy and there is nothing to saw off when it is a matter of safety. Not only is the approach a bit long, but it is not always uphill, which made us anxious about the way back to the cars, the next day, after the long and exhausting climb of the giant mountain. There is even a bit of via ferrata, nothing technically difficult but just a bit vertical, especially with rucksacks pulling you down backwards.

We finally reached the glacier and could see the huge building sitting on it. Having been warned by so many bad rumors, my first impression is excellent. It is indeed big but very welcoming and warm (the outside temperature is probably already below zero) and lovely inside. Everything is covered with thick old wood polished by contact with many generations of climbers. The common room is quite dark, because the windows are small to keep the warmth, but buzzing with climbers who have arrived before us. At arrival, we are given a cabin. Yes, a cabin, not, as I had imagined in my worse-case scenario, one berth out of 250. Actually we have a tiny but cosy cabin just for us. The berths have sheets and duvets, unheard-of luxury at so high an altitude.

We install ourselves and go down to the restaurant where a long queue has already started forming. Seeing the length of the queue, we decide to get up earlier than planned the next morning, to be the first ones in the breakfast queue. The meal is hot and I find it good. Anything that is cooked and served to me at this altitude after a long climb is good anyway. The atmosphere is warm in both senses. The crowd is absolutely international. You can hear all the languages in this big room, plenty of English and American but also all sorts of Eastern European languages and Russian, Japanese, Chinese etc..

Although we enjoy the atmosphere and are happy together, we retire early because the next day is going to be a bit demanding in the sense that we will not only have to climb up and down the Monte Rosa, but climb down as well what we had climbed today because we won’t be sleeping here a second night. I usually don’t sleep well (or even sometimes not at all) in huts, probably mostly because of the fear of the climb the next day but this night was heavenly. Total silence in the cabin, the moon enlightens the big mountain buried in the kind of silence you only experience when all of nature’s noises are smothered by a thick coat of snow. None of us snores or coughs, and we sleep like babies.

Up early, first in the queue, we have a good breakfast with hot tea and cereal and off we leave at 4:30am in the dark with our headlamps. And here starts the torture.

The wind has died and it is zero degrees C. The night is quite clear when we come out of the hut, but not for long. We first have to climb down a long vertical iced iron ladder to step on the glacier and there we put crampons and enrope straight away as we had already put the harness on before leaving the hut. Both Andres go ahead on the first rope, then on the 2^nd rope Monique, myself and Pierre Olivier, and the 3^rd rope holds Bruno and Philippe. Pierre Olivier and I are the only ones who have never passed the 4,000m (13,123ft) threshold before. It is a kind of “baptism of height” in the Alps. Pierre Olivier is only 17 years old. He is the youngest of us all but very fit and already quite experienced.

We start in the pitch dark, headlamps on. Soon a nape of mist surrounds us, just for a few minutes but just long enough for me to start feeling my fear coming back to the surface. The slope is not really steep but I know that the climb will be long, having contemplated this glacier from afar all my youth and seriously studied the 1/25,000 map. We pass the three first hillocks and here, out of the blue, perhaps 15 minutes ahead of us, appear two climbers who must have skipped the hut’s breakfast in order to leave earlier.

Dawn is not far now but we have already passed several hillocks. The mountains around are starting to wear their pink early morning coats. We pass a few more hillocks, and at the top of a big one, here we are in the bright morning sun. When the sun hit our faces it is magic. We stop for a few minutes to enjoy its warmth on our icy cheeks. Now the slope is starting to get steeper and steeper but still not as steep as some other climbs that I can remember. We have passed the 4,000m threshold without me noticing. When I check my GPS I see 4,270m and I am happy not to feel anything special, as I had heard so many stories but soon after, around 4,350/4,400, I start feeling the thin air and need to breathe twice as much and to slow down a bit.

Also, a while ago, we started feeling the strong summit wind and the bitter cold which doesn’t help. I congratulate myself for being wise enough to be wearing my duvet jacket, silk socks and silk gloves under my thick ski socks and duvet mittens. When I was packing, I thought that I may be carrying all that for nothing but no, I am wearing everything that I brought.

On our way up we can see, straight on top of Punta Gnifetti at 4,554m -14,941ft, the ethereal Cabanna Margherita Regina, the highest in Europe. Amazing hut, perched in equilibrium on the Punta, unlike the usual huts that cuddle to rocks and glaciers. First built in 1893, it was rebuilt in 1980. Often contested for its position, it is at the centre of a controversy. It is dedicated to Queen Margherita of Savoy, who climbed there in 1893, when she was 41.

We must not be too far from the summit now. Everything around me is so strange, so new. Despite the thin air, I do my best to keep the pace going, because I know that if we want to reach the summit and climb down in good time there is no time to waste. The climb is very beautiful because of this impression of sliding uphill on fresh whipped cream, on snowy endless slopes all around as far as the view goes uphill. Downhill the valley is plunged in a bluish tender mist.

We are not alone there. We can see down below, behind us, several ropes of climbers climbing in our tracks. The summit will be crowded, if we don’t hurry up. Little by little we start seeing where we are heading to. The climb draws a long steep curve towards the left and we reach the last ridge. So close to the summit now the wind is absolutely ferocious and I discover with horror that we are separated from the summit by a vertical wall of rock. We are all stopped on this narrow ridge because there is a queue! Yes a queue at 15,000 ft as , for safety reasons, we must let the 2 climbers who were ahead of us finish climbing this wall before starting.

Then suddenly a violent gust of wind knocks me down onto the snow and I can see the precipice on both sides of the sharp ridge. My heart pounds in my chest like drums. I am lucky that we are enroped because the emptiness on each side of this narrow steep ridge is breathtaking. In addition to that, the first rope of climbers in our party (they have just recently started rock climbing), inform us that the rocks are covered with ice and that we have to be extremely cautious because they are deadly slippery, even with crampons. I then get so scared that I have the fleeting idea of skipping the last bit.

Fortunately we wait long enough for me to gather my courage, determination and strength. Despite my steamed (by the altitude and the exhaustion) brain, I think that it would be a pity to have done all that to stop a few meters under the summit. My motto in life has always been: “if they can do it, I can do it ”. Fortunately the rocks look worse than they actually are and my deep concentration smothers my fear. At 9:30am we emerge on a tiny platform, just big enough for us and the 2 climbers who have reached the summit just before us.

The 360 degrees view from the summit is spectacular. We can see my beloved mountain, the Matterhorn, and lots of other famous Alpine summits. This time we are at the very top. Brief moment of total peace and contemplation all around in the thin air, in the pure immensity, absolute joy that puts a lump in my throat. This is an unforgettable moment in our lives. But we are already freezing in the ferocious icy wind. We start climbing down very cautiously, as the wind is the worst I have experienced, in power and temperature.

After cautiously climbing down the icy wall of rocks, the rest of the way down will be quite easy. As soon as we are back on the glacier, we take a bit of time to eat our iron rations. On our way down, we meet several ropes of climbers making their way up, which makes us feel good, as we already have reached the summit and are on our way down. Lower down, there is even a cinema crew shooting a film.

We progress fast enough. We are still so high and the temperature is still so low that the coat of snow on the glacier holds us well. But we are now going too fast. Turning back, we notice our 4 companions stopped, very far up there, clung on the mountain. They must have been stopped for a long time for us to have put so much distance between us. We have no way of communicating. We wait for a quite long time, hoping that no one is hurt and just when we are going to go back up towards them, they start climbing down slowly. When they arrive we find out that Andre has broken a crampon. Fortunately the worse difficulty is behind us and he should be able to keep going, paying extra attention.

The more we go down, the more we meet climbers, who are indeed very late, obviously they won’t be able to reach the summit, we even see some “tourists” wearing shorts at the very bottom of the glacier, not far from the hut. We reach the rocks and then find the crowd of tourists, who climbed up to the hut (but won’t go higher) to contemplate the scenery and watch the climbers on the Monte Rosa with their binoculars. We remove crampons and harness, we roll up and pack the ropes and we share a bit of food but we must go soon because we still have to climb down the 700m – 2,300ft stretch we climbed yesterday, in addition of the 1,000m – 3,300ft that we just climbed up and down today.

Our rucksacks are made heavier by the equipment we were previously carrying on our bodies. The climb down is long, it seems much longer than what we had climbed the day before. Also considerably slowed by the hordes of Italians that we cross and who are going up to the hut. As the path is narrow and quite vertical in some parts, we have to stop often to let them pass.

We finally reach the cable car a bit before 2pm. We stop in Greyssoney for coffee, tea and biscuits to celebrate the climb. There, in the sun, on this lovely village piazza, surrounded by café terraces full of tourists basking in the sun, we think of this morning on the immense glacier, as if it had happened very long ago or even in a dream or in a previous life. I have some difficulty to realise that just a few hours ago we were in such a different environment. Those unique moments have sealed our friendship a bit more and we already discuss the next glacier we are planning on climbing together in a few days, weather permitting.

Photographs of the glacier trek

Long Distance Walkers Association
French Alpine Club

Les Etoiles de Midi – Journal of a Glacier Trek

Dôme de la Sache 3,601m (11,815ft) - 21 August 2006

French version here

Having closely monitored the weather forecast for the last few days, Andre decided that the most favourable day for the glacier trek to take place was Monday, the 21^st of August.

I went down to le Chatelet on Sunday the 20th of August at 3:30pm. Olga had walked up to meet me on my way so that we could chat a bit in the car as she was not planning on doing the glacier trek with us. We gathered equipment and food and boarded Pierre’s car. We were 5: Pierre, Romain, both Andres and me. We drove to the Heights of Villaroger then left the car to climb to the Turia hut by the footpath.

At Turia, Andre, Martine, Christian and Nicole from the Grenoble CAF (Club Alpin Français) were waiting for us and had kept berths for us. As they had reached the hut early in the afternoon, they decided to climb further to reach the moraine of the glacier and to mark out the itinerary with around 30 cairns so that we would be able to climb in the darkness, before sunrise, the next day. After settling down briefly, we cooked and ate together pasta with tomato sauce and cheese brought by the Moutiers CAF and dry sausage and kosher ham (sic) brought by the Grenoble CAF. The hut keeper and his partner sat at the next table with the shepherd. In the winter time, the hut keeper studies geography in Grenoble and his partner psychology. Then we did the dishes all together at the “bachal” (a bachal is a water trough, a big tub in front of the hut with running water from the torrent), after having heated some water.

We were all in our berths by 8pm, ready for the night concert of coughs and snores.

Up at 4am (except for Martine, who had decided to skip the glacier trek), we breakfast and start out at 4:40am in the darkness with our headlamps. The cold is bearable. We are 8, we will make 2 ropes of 4 climbers each when the time comes. Andre, from Grenoble CAF walks ahead to locate (with great difficulty) the cairns erected the day before and leads us in the dark to the foot of the North Glacier of Gurraz. We walk for about one hour in the total darkness. A pale day is rising when we reach the moraine and afterwards the foot of the glacier. We have just enough light to put on harness and crampons and to rope up. Pierre and Romain decide then to go back to the hut. We are 6 left for the glacier trek: 2 ropes of 3 climbers each. I am between the 2 Andres from CAF Moutiers and the other Nicole is between Andre and Christian from CAF Grenoble.

The bottom of the glacier is spread with stones and our progression is slow. The mist is slow to lift and we have to take out IGN maps and GPS to try to find a way across open crevasses (still less dangerous than the hidden ones). But the glorious day is not long to appear and to dissipate the mist then it is the feast of the sun which lightens all the surrounding summits with bright pink. All the clouds are now down below. The hut that we have left in the darkness must be buried in a thick fog. We transfer rapidly from the North Glacier of Gurraz to the southern one and very quickly progress across majestic seracs on a thick, new and virgin coat of snow (very hard because it is now very cold, as we have passed the 3,000m threshold). We can see the summit, very high, very far away. From where we are, it seems impossible to reach in one day.

The climb varies between sometimes very long stretches of soft slope and a few very steep walls to pass. But the icy snow bears us well and crampons cling firmly to the slope. The 3rd in the rope of climbers braces himself on his ice axe to assure the 1st one, when he tests and passes the natural snow bridges, between crevasses. We transfer to the third and last glacier: Glacier of Savinaz, before reaching the summit at 3,601m.

We reach the summit after walking on a sharp ridge around 10:30am, on a glorious sunny day and the view is fabulous, unique. Over a grandiose breathtaking landscape of eternal snow, the sky is dark blue, almost black… the famous Midday Stars, les Etoiles de Midi… From there we can see all the Alpine chains, Mont Blanc, Aiguille du Glacier, Grandes Jorasses, Matterhorn, Monte Rosa, Monte Viso, further than 150 miles. The sky up here is so clear and pure. And, of course we spot all our nearer mountains: The Grande Sassiere Glacier, Grande Casse, Grande Motte, Albaron… We rapidly eat some iron rations (cereal bars, dry fruit) before starting our way down that is going to be never-ending. This, I don’t know yet, all in the joy of my first 3,600m.

An icy and furious wind has risen but the sun is still here, close to us. The first part of the way down goes smoothly and we can contemplate the immensity of path we have climbed earlier, without being aware of, how much we were concentrated on laying one foot before the other one and making sure that the second one was well assured before removing the previous one. But quickly things get bad. The snow, very hard a few hours earlier, cannot carry us anymore. We begin to sink on each step up to the waist and our progression becomes very slow, difficult and exhausting. We must extract our back leg from the enormous hole where it is most often stuck to propel it forward into the next deep hole. It takes lots of time and energy and I don’t have much energy left after a 6 hour climb. But we have no choice and there is no alternative to climbing down straight away because the more we wait the more the snow is to get soft, therefore we absolutely can not stop to rest, not even a minute. In a rope of climbers, we are all interdependent. If one stops, the whole rope of climbers stops. One can neither slow down nor accelerate. We must all walk regularly, rope tight. In addition, I start to get anguished thinking about all the frail bridges between crevasses that we have passed early morning when the snow was as hard as concrete. In what state will they be when we reach them again?

The descent is endless. I have the impression of covering ten times more distance than on the way up despite the fact that our trajectory is much more direct, straight down the steep slope. But I have no leisure to be afraid, so intense is my concentration focused on gathering the little of what is left of my strength to keep on placing a foot before the other. The glacier is endless and the sumptuous giant seracs imposing.

After climbing down for long hours we finally reach the transparent ice. There we don’t sink anymore, on the contrary we have to break hard on our crampons into the ice below which we can hear the running torrents roar. The mountains echo all the subterranean torrents and I am waiting (without any impatience, of course) for the moment when the crust of ice would give in under our weight and we would have an improvised bath in icy water. However a bath would not be superfluous because we have not washed for 2 days but I am still not keen about plunging fully dressed into icy water. The bottom glacier, that had seemed so short in the early morning is also endless and I start to wonder if we would one day reach those good solid rocks on which we can normally walk without crampons, harness and rope. In life, with patience and perseverance, everything ends up happening. Finally we can remove crampons and harness to share a few iron rations. But we don’t know that we have not finished suffering.

No, we have not, because although the sun enlightens the landscape that we had covered earlier in the darkness, we can no longer find the morning cairns anymore and the descent through the huge blocks of rocks that slip under our steps is perilous and very tiring. The rucksacks are heavy because loaded with crampons, harness and ropes. We progress at random. Finally from a hillock the hut comes into view far down below and will seem to stay far down below for a long time as if stepping back with each step of our progress. Finally some grass, and Martine who has come to meet us, appear.

Once at the hut, I am too tired to pack my rucksack with the few things that I had left there in the morning. My hands are bloody, ruined by ice axe and rope. We share a good moment together around hot tea, filling in and signing the hut’s gold book. We sort what is left from our food supplies to leave them for the hut keeper and the shepherd. We remove our warm clothes and put on shorts to climb down towards the Gurraz hamlet (1,600m) in the valley. Two more hours walk with heavy rucksacks before reaching the car which is waiting for us.

Despite fatigue and anguish, as usual only happiness is left after such a long glacier trek. Up there in total purity, feelings are different. Mundane daily human miseries seem insignificant. Nothing matters. There is total communion with nature, and with oneself. During the endless way down my leitmotiv was: never again, but now my only wish is to go back there.

Photographs of the glacier trek

Long Distance Walkers Association
French Alpine Club