backcountry journal
April 06
The view down over Chamonix. It doesn't seem that high until you realise that the resorts across the valley are almost half our height. The upsetting thing is that you can see our starting point. It looks so close and yet took so long.
The view to the south west towards La Grave. In this picture you can even see the Pyramids Calcairs down at the very bottom.
But we had met our match. After 11 hours of hiking and climbing we were in pretty bad shape. None of us had done sufficient acclimatisation. It would have taken about 1-2 weeks of high altitude time to get to the top of Mont Blanc without so much as a headache. All I wanted to do was get off the summit, or get below 3000m so that I could breath and rid myself of the headache and nausea. It is easy to regret a decision today in front of my laptop, but I wish now that we had ridden from the very summit. The unfortunate fact was that we were beaten: after all that work we had not enough left to safely negotiate the descent from the absolute summit. I knew it at the time and what's more, I didn't even want to do it. There was no way I could snowboard powerfully and confidently with concentration, let alone take on the most tricky crevassed terrain I had seen in my time on a board. Our guides decided against the direct descent from the summit and no one argued. I didn't even feel like snowboarding at that point in time. We put in a descent on foot for the first 300m or so along a very narrow ridge. We were still heaving with altitude sickness and although the down stepping was physically much easier than climbing, it was still very hard work and took us almost 1 hour. On the way I saw a lone skier ripping it up like he was in a movie.
As the sun rose 7 hours earlier I had noticed a single skier way behind us, doing the same ascent route. Just as we were leaving the summit he arrived, alone! He quietly sat down for 5 minutes, I smiled and waved at him and then he stepped into his bindings and rode from the summit right down the crevassed middle line. It was like he had done it 100 times before and I was dumfounded. I pointed out how fit he was and that he was alone and our guide just said "yeah, you get some pretty skilled guys around here". I felt utterly pathetic for being so broken when this guy was so strong. But it was inspiring! It was also good to see the arrival of the pair of skiers that looked so bad in the last hour leading to the summit. There was only three summit teams that day, ourselves included.
As the sun rose 7 hours earlier I had noticed a single skier way behind us, doing the same ascent route. Just as we were leaving the summit he arrived, alone! He quietly sat down for 5 minutes, I smiled and waved at him and then he stepped into his bindings and rode from the summit right down the crevassed middle line. It was like he had done it 100 times before and I was dumfounded. I pointed out how fit he was and that he was alone and our guide just said "yeah, you get some pretty skilled guys around here". I felt utterly pathetic for being so broken when this guy was so strong. But it was inspiring! It was also good to see the arrival of the pair of skiers that looked so bad in the last hour leading to the summit. There was only three summit teams that day, ourselves included.
A shot showing a section of our descent route, including the long since close tourist lift station. The ice cliffs and crevasse walls in the upper part of the shot are as high as 3 story houses. It is massive terrain.
Close up detail of our descent. We went from left to right above the cliffs and below the obvious and sketchy serac falls.
Thankfully one of the guides managed to take a picture of our riding. Sadly it was way too tracked out for all the effort we had made.
During the descent, looking back up towards the summit. The ice cliffs and serac falls are massive
We reached a shoulder at about 4400m from which we felt we could ride more safely. After a little bit of riding we hit nasty ice that required the boards to be replaced with crampons and more down climbing. One guy was so far out of the ice that he had to put in an ice screw to hold him in place whilst switching into crampons. After that stretch of ice we had no more real problems and several moments of good powder above 4000m between the humungous glacial cliffs. Annoyingly, my head was still about to explode and every bump in the terrain caused an agonising thump in the brain. I wasn't enjoying it much, except for the silky smooth powder bits and the sensation of racing downhill into oxygen again.
Unfortunately there is a much easier (though dangerous) way up the mountain and the otherwise expansive slopes of powder had been reasonably well tracked. Further down it was really tracked out and the cut up bumps were torture for my headache. One of the downsides of Chamonix is that 5 days after the last snow, if you can ride it then there will be tracks on it. It actually takes a long time to ride down 2000m of vertical descent on extremely tired legs and we had some careful crevasse dodging along the way, particularly during a traverse stage. After that our headaches were gone and although we had jelly legs we enjoyed another 1000m vertical of riding which ended in perfect fast corn. But the work was not over. We were now down around 2000m and the temperature was suddenly really high and we had to hike out of a gully to access a direct riding line down hill to the entrance of the Mont Blanc tunnel. After that short hot sunny walk across to the next gully we had some scrappy tree riding to do and then a long walk down a rough old summer path. This walk down took almost an hour and was not the most glorious end to the hardest thing I have ever done. But it was a huge descent none the less with a solid 3000m of vertical drop sliding away below my p-tex base. Excluding the boot sections it took about 2 hours to descend, 4 hours in total.
By the time we were back in the valley I didn't quite recall what all the big deal was about and once I made it back to the campervan, my girlfriend and my dog I simply announced that after a sleepless night we did an 11 hour hike starting at 2am followed by 4 hours of descent. Including some breaks we spent 16 hours in our snowboard boots and I was tired but felt like a beer. Only in writing this have I remembered how amazingly difficult it was to take another step.
So many people reach the summit on the shorter and easier Gouter route, but they too would feel the debilitating effects of altitude, particularly considering that they come very unprepared and yet driven by their guides to reach the top. In retrospect I am glad we forged on, but I now clearly see that we had passed the safe point of altitude sickness from a medical perspective. In our instance, the fastest and safest way down was to keep going up and over the summit. However, more than re-affirming to myself that the human body can do anything that you tell it to do, I learnt on this trip that altitude sickness is very real and should be respected. Mont Blanc is so humble looking that it is often dismissed as a threat. Indeed compared to the big mountains of the world it is a walk in the park, but only if you are prepared. The Chamonix company of mountain guides once published an interesting educational pamphlet that should be read before attempting Mont Blanc via a tourist route or otherwise. It can be downloaded here.
Unfortunately there is a much easier (though dangerous) way up the mountain and the otherwise expansive slopes of powder had been reasonably well tracked. Further down it was really tracked out and the cut up bumps were torture for my headache. One of the downsides of Chamonix is that 5 days after the last snow, if you can ride it then there will be tracks on it. It actually takes a long time to ride down 2000m of vertical descent on extremely tired legs and we had some careful crevasse dodging along the way, particularly during a traverse stage. After that our headaches were gone and although we had jelly legs we enjoyed another 1000m vertical of riding which ended in perfect fast corn. But the work was not over. We were now down around 2000m and the temperature was suddenly really high and we had to hike out of a gully to access a direct riding line down hill to the entrance of the Mont Blanc tunnel. After that short hot sunny walk across to the next gully we had some scrappy tree riding to do and then a long walk down a rough old summer path. This walk down took almost an hour and was not the most glorious end to the hardest thing I have ever done. But it was a huge descent none the less with a solid 3000m of vertical drop sliding away below my p-tex base. Excluding the boot sections it took about 2 hours to descend, 4 hours in total.
By the time we were back in the valley I didn't quite recall what all the big deal was about and once I made it back to the campervan, my girlfriend and my dog I simply announced that after a sleepless night we did an 11 hour hike starting at 2am followed by 4 hours of descent. Including some breaks we spent 16 hours in our snowboard boots and I was tired but felt like a beer. Only in writing this have I remembered how amazingly difficult it was to take another step.
So many people reach the summit on the shorter and easier Gouter route, but they too would feel the debilitating effects of altitude, particularly considering that they come very unprepared and yet driven by their guides to reach the top. In retrospect I am glad we forged on, but I now clearly see that we had passed the safe point of altitude sickness from a medical perspective. In our instance, the fastest and safest way down was to keep going up and over the summit. However, more than re-affirming to myself that the human body can do anything that you tell it to do, I learnt on this trip that altitude sickness is very real and should be respected. Mont Blanc is so humble looking that it is often dismissed as a threat. Indeed compared to the big mountains of the world it is a walk in the park, but only if you are prepared. The Chamonix company of mountain guides once published an interesting educational pamphlet that should be read before attempting Mont Blanc via a tourist route or otherwise. It can be downloaded here.
Although it was very difficult, it was not even close to impossible yet for a while after the ascent I was not very interested in experiencing such discomfort again. I am sure now that I will, but perhaps be better prepared. Even though I openly say that I didn't actually enjoy the sensations on the journey, I would hate it if that was interpreted as dissatisfaction or negativity. It was undoubtedly the most positive and satisfying thing I have ever done, irrespective of how unpleasant it felt doing it. Apparently that's mountaineering.
[Mont Blanc guide for skiers, reference #132]