LHR 4ieme jour

The High Route can be a bit of a goat trail during the peak touring season around Easter. This is good, because the trail tends to follow the safest consensual line, and there is generally someone in front and behind you if you get into trouble. Some days are longer than others and necessitate early starts to avoid being exposed to warm slides under south facing slopes. 

As the planet warms the glaciers are retreating, in some places alarmingly so. And whilst the High Route is always changing from season to season, there are several places that are becoming increasingly challenging or dangerous. It is foreseeable that the High Route may no longer be possible for amateurs like us in a few decades.

Glacial travel is is a little disarming until you get used to it. You can sometimes feel the massive river of ice move beneath you, and you are always conscious of danger, with the idea of falling down a crevice a perpetual dread. 

Things whip past you all the time, and a climbing helmet is more to protect you from these than any falls.

We had a few mates leaving the week after us and they'd elected to not take a guide. Whilst this was fairly heroic, I was glad to have Luc who had done this route several times a year for nearly forty years. Guides know more than just the route though - they are a wealth of stories, histories, culture and informations. They are meteorologists, geologists, environmentalists, tacticians, psychologists and pace setters.

Anyway, there was plenty to think about during the long and fairly tedious traverse along the Dix reservoir. I also started getting texts from my cousin who evidently had a brother-in-law who had suddenly become very sick in Cambodia and needed advice. I started to wonder what I was doing away from my own family.

The Cabane des Dix was very charming. I particularly liked that we had to hang our ice axes in a neat line at the entry - they didn't want any trouble.

We had a snack, and then decided to climb up to La Luette for a run down in the powder. Only Luc and I summitted, with the others dropping off after various levels of exhaustion. Spoke to my cousin on the top and got him in touch with some colleagues, and then an awesome run down through untracked pow, which is always a nice way to end the day.

There was a good crowd in the refuge that night. The old Japanese gents were still on our heels, and there were other groups from every corner of the planet, all come to pay homage to the most famous of ski tours. We enjoyed a good three course feed with some fine pinot and genepi. The refuges sure beat our cattleman huts! 

Day 4: From Cabane Prafleuri (2662m) we climbed to Col des Roux (2804m) and then followed the long and boring but avalanche prone skirt along Lac des Dix to Pas du Chat, then a gentle climb to Cabane des Dix (2928m). We downed an awesome roesti, and then spent the afternoon climbing up to La Luette (3550m) for an awesome powder descent!

3ieme jour LHR

We woke to general pukage. With 10cm at this low altitude, things were obviously going to be precarious up high. At this point on the High Route, one can opt between the harder and more technical "Classic" route, or take a taxi to Verbier, which is the easier and more frequented route with better huts. Luc had chosen the latter for us, possibly because of the huts, but more likely because he hadn't known our abilities. And on a day like today, we were glad for his discretion.

Leaving the last lift at Verbier, I felt an awful sense of foreboding. As a father of three, just how sensible was it to be heading off into a high alpine wilderness in the middle of a blizzard with the avalanche flags flapping at a seriously upgraded level three?

Even Luc didn't bother with consulting his mobile under the pretence of texting a friend. He had the Garmin out and was consulting it every 50 meters. The only consolation was that there were other idiots doing the same, including a group of elderly Japanese gentlemen (average age 75!) who were travelling with a young Italian guide who couldn't communicate with his group. As if only to instil confidence in our situation, Luc remarked frequently on what dangerous lines they were skinning.

However it was on this day that the jet lag began to ebb, acclimatisation started to weave its wonders on oxygen carrying capacities, and we finally gelled into an alpine touring unit. Our steps ever upwards began to resemble the mechanised clockwork of the Swiss, our tips and tails moving in synchronisation, inches apart.

And then, on top of one of the half dozen cols we ended up crossing that day, the most remarkable thing: a dog. Some party had chosen today to do this tour with some mates and their dog, just as I might whizz out to Feathertop and back alone without a worry in the world. It finally dawned on me that this was a new kind of normal for people of this part of the world and that nothing bad was likely to pass.

I think we all sensed it. If a dog could cope (with every skin transition, she would jump up onto a relatively warm pack to keep her feet warm), then so could we. As the snow continued to pile up past the half meter mark and other parties decided to retire to the valleys, we decided to kick on up to summit Rosablanche - if not for the views which are allegedly sublime, then for the kick-arse powder descent all the way down to Prafleuri, where we were finally rewarded with a clearing in the weather and a hearty roesti washed down with several beers at puffy o'clock.    

Day 3: Taxi from Champex to Sembrancher (Verbier). Skilifts up to 2894m and then progressive descents and climbs to the Col de la Chaux (2940m), Col de Louvie, and Col de Momin all through a blizzard. Despite the poor visibility we decided to climb Rosablanche (3336m), and were rewarded with a magic powder descent to Cabane Prafleuri (2662m).

La Haute Route 2ieme Jour

We woke up on the second day to find that the bad weather had come in again leaving us with 10cm fresh and lots of gloom. On the first day, fitness for some of us had been tested, with acclimatisation proving telling. Day 2 would prove one of the hardest, both physically and technically, with a significant rappel from the top of the Col du Chardonnet, and a balls to the wall ice climb up the Fenetre de Saleina. Nearly 2km up, 3km down, and 15km long.

Long before departing, I had read of one older woman who ran sub-3-hour marathons proclaiming that the High Route was the hardest thing she had ever embarked upon. This had spurred me on to near age-perfect fitness, which made concentration on the trickier bits much easier.

It felt disappointing for me to be leaving the motherland, although I soon realised that French Switzerland is more French than Swiss, and that a common alpinism is shared. So the language is the same, the different currency is just annoying (the costs ratchet up), and the quality of food and plonk diminish ever so slightly. The chocolate is better though, and we spent a leisurely hour shopping for energy supplies. I found a friendly ski repair to fix my Dynafit boot which had fractured at the achilles link yet again.

Skiing down from the Cabane du Trient was full on. Slides and dark crevasses everywhere, including one which had swallowed a young girl, skis and all, writhing and screaming at her guide who seemed calm as strudel as he tried to yank her out. 

Some kind soul had left a rope for us to yank ourselves up through the mud to the Col des Ecandies, and the couloirs dripping down from behind Trient might have been a better option. The entire descent down to Champex was in mist and rain, which was a real shame. Half way down, we passed the most amazing avalanche debris - massive walls of snow rubble that had travelled hundreds of meters, although Luc said that these are slow wet sliders. Still, I wouldn't like to be in their path no matter their speed.

The hotel in Champex was gold. Hot showers, a fire, cold beer, nice food. Unless you want to be a he-man, breaks like this are a welcome godsend for this tour. We put on our puffys, and soaked it up.

Day 2: Down to Argentiere Glacier (2300m), then a long climb up to the Col du Chardonnet (3323m), a short hairy rappel into Switzerland, down to traverse the Glacier de Saleina, another hairy ice climb up to the Fenetre de Saleina, past the Cabane du Trient to Col des Ecandies, and a final long descent in the rain down to Champex (1477m)