Page 26 - 1998 AMA Summer

Idecided to break with routine d’Herens was forecast to be fine pm when the heavens really It was obvious from this experi­
in the summer of 1997 and instead of organising my usual annual AT expedition with CCF cadets I planned to indulge myself, in the company of my son Richard, with a ‘pri­ vate’ trip to the Alps instead. Following the excited anticipa­ tion of a “hassle-free” journey into Europe we were reliably informed on our arrival in early
July that the Valais area of the Pennine Alps was experiencing its worst weather of the century'! The Swiss meteo frequently issued the statement “L’été est malade” which summed the sit­ uation up admirably.
Not surprisingly the routes we’d been dreaming of in the preceding months were not in condition and were unlikely to become so in the time we had available. The day after our arrival at Les Hauderes in Val
Richard Smith on WSW ridge of Petit Dent de Veioeve
until mid-afternoon so we chose opened.
the short W est-South-W est
Ridge of the Petite Dent de In the week that followed the Veisivi as a “warm up”. It gave
us eight hours of pleasant accli­
matisation and some grade II
climbing. However our descent
of the summit rocks coincided
with the arrival of the electrical
precursor to the afternoon with a forecast predicting the storms. This gave us an alarm­
ing moment or two when the
ski poles, attached to the side of
my rucksack, hummed and dis­
charged into my lum bar region
with a pronounced shock! All half hours later we reached the around us the rocks of the sum­
m it ridge crackled into life and
even raised fingers tingled and
noisily attracted charge. Our never experienced such instan­ descent to open flatter ground
two rope lengths down the ridge
was remarkably rapid and was
followed by drier and brighter
conditions which stayed with us
until we reached the car at 3.00
ence and two more wet days that we were more likely to be successful with rock routes and that is how we found ourselves back in the Val d’Herens in the next ‘weather window’attempt­ ing the ‘classic’ W est face route of the Aiguille de la Tsa (Assez Difficile) which dominates the east side of the Valley high above the village of Arolla.
The morning was damp and overcast and spent in camp at Les Hauderes; the brighter and drier afternoon was spent ‘warming up’ on some of the grade V and V+ routes on the commendable road side Section Pont crag just below Evolene and the glorious evening that followed provided ideal condi­ tions to complete the one-and- half- hour walk to the Cabane de la Tsa (2607m). At 6 am next morning we started hopping
skies seldom cleared save for a thirty-six hour window in which we attempted the Origi­ nal Route on M ont Blanc. We were poised at the Grand Mulet Hut on the evening of 22nd July
arrival of another front the fol­ lowing afternoon. We were one of the three parties that set out at 1.00 am in extraordinarily warm conditions. Six-and-a-
Col de Dome (4237m) at pre­ cisely the same time as the pre­ mature frontal system. I have
taneous ‘w hite-out’ conditions anywhere and with little delay we retraced our freshly covered tracks with difficulty - the sim­ ilarities to the Cairngorms in February were uncanny!