Page 89 - Mercian Eagle 2012

A nice weekend off to forget all the important lessons of Snowdonia served well before the journey out to Turin the following Monday. The flight was made even more comfortable by a certain NCO using his initiative and ransacking the BA Executive Lounge for all its free crisps and nibbles and making it onto the plane with an entire rucksack filled with Mini Cheddars and Jaffa Cakes. After an otherwise uneventful journey we arrived at our home for the majority of the ten days spent in the Alps, a camp in Courmayeur used by the Italian Alpinis, who despite their fearsome reputation for alpine warfare throughout the early 20th century seem to have mellowed somewhat and now seem to spend most of their time guarding the gate in their particularly stylish blue
tracksuits.
demonstration by our Alpini guides of how to perform a crevasse rescue.
The night brought yet more fresh snow onto the mountains so, in a slight change
of plans, the next day we descended
back down the valley from camp for a
spot of rock climbing. The lovely weather down in the valley masked the slightly
more treacherous conditions higher on the mountains. However, the range of routes on offer presented a good learning opportunity for those who had never climbed before and a bit of a challenge for some of the more experienced climbers. It also presented an opportunity for any members of the team with slight misgivings about spending time dangling off a rope to quickly get over their fear of heights, something they would need
to do in preparation for later in the expedition!
After three days
in the mountains the time came for our first summit attempt. The target was finally settled, and Monte Rosa, at 4,610m, was chosen as the first of our two-day excursions. The first
day was unsettlingly relaxed, and after a two-hour drive to the village at the base of the
mountain we found ourselves settling down for a lovely bowl of classic Italian pasta. Our ascent began with a very bumpy journey up what in winter would have been the
ski slopes in two Land Rovers that were clearly not having the easiest of lives, and then a cable car hop up to about 3,000m. The walk from there to the mountain
hut provided a chance for everyone to remember how to walk on snow again
and before long we found ourselves at
the “hut” which, as it turned out, was
more like a mountain hotel complete with restaurant and a veranda with sun lounges. Before long it was time for dinner and yet another bowl of Italy’s finest. Day two of the ascent came far too early, up at four, quick
breakfast and out of the door by five. Just over 1,100m of ascent awaited us and as usual the Alpini guides were unforgiving with their pace providing a rude wake-up for those who’d managed to get their boots and crampons on without really waking
up. The first couple of hours of the ascent were a strange experience with the crisp coldness of the snow and the darkness of the mountain with only the odd string of head torch lights illuminating the snow further off up in the mountain.
Thankfully, the sun finally rose and as it warmed up and we neared the summit we could see the scenery around us and just how far we had come. At the summit a smaller and slightly less flash mountain hut awaited us, but after a couple of cups of hot tea and a couple of Mercian Eagle stickers left inside we were recovered enough
to appreciate the view, looking down on the cloud lying below us and just a few peaks showing such as the Matterhorn and Mont Blanc poking through. Job done! All that remained was the long walk down as the snow slowly turned to soft and slushy, but it was made all the better (or worse)
in the knowledge that it would soon be followed by the inevitable ... pasta.
Monte Rosa conquered, a day off
was earned. A trip through the Mont
Blanc tunnel to the town of Chamonix followed, with all its outdoor shops
offering unnecessary quantities of mountaineering kit, and restaurants offering a thankfully different type of cuisine. However, the talk over lunch was eager for the next mountain, and it would not be a long wait.
Gran Paradiso stands at 4061m above sea level, and although lower than Monte Rosa it presented just as much, if not more, of a challenge. As before, the first day took the form of a walk up to the hut and an afternoon spent preparing for the challenge to come. The 4am start was less grating this time and the walk began by ascending up a steep bank of rock left along the side of a glacier that had long since retreated. As the sun came up we reached a much more technical part of the route, with a 200m traverse across a cliff face with the glacier falling down in the valley far beneath us. After this we were greeted by more snow and after a long trudge up the hill we
were in sight of the summit. With the summit standing on a small rocky outcrop on the top of the mountain it involved a
brief scramble to get onto, but in order
to reach the very top it was necessary to traverse across a short ledge. This wouldn’t have presented much of a challenge normally, but the fact that off this ledge was at least a 500m drop added a bit of extra excitement. On the route down we dropped back down the glacier towards the hut,
and as we made it back to the Alpini camp in Courmayeur, morale was high in the knowledge that over the course of our time in the Alps the expedition had achieved two impressive 4,000m peaks.
When the first
morning arrived and
it was finally time to
meet the Alpinis (who
would be acting as our
guides and instructors
for the duration), and
get out for a morning
on the hills. Reports of
large quantities of fresh
snow on the summit
of Mont Blanc and a
high avalanche risk put
a slight dampener on the first day, but we set off for some acclimatisation training on the lower slopes of the Mont Blanc Bowl. As it turned out ‘lower’ is a subjective
term, and by the time we got off the cable car and stepped onto the glacier we were already at 3500m. After a couple of hours in rope teams of four moving along the glacier, everyone was finally starting to get a handle on the art of walking in crampons – surprisingly difficult, judging by the number of ripped trousers. Our second day on the mountain ran in more or less the same format, getting the cable car up and this time spending a bit longer on the glacier, with a stop for lunch and a particularly slick
Reports of large quantities of fresh snow on the summit of Mont Blanc and a high avalanche risk put a slight dampener on the first day...
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