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