Sports | Hiking » Avoiding the void on Mont Blanc

AVOIDING THE VOID ON MONT BLANC Why do people climb mountains? I rehearse the answers: To find out more about themselves and their relationships with others; to break the daily cycle; to test themselves in a hostile environment. None of these seem satisfactory but the Easyjet plane parked on the apron at Belfast International Airport shows little inclination to taxi anywhere so I resume. The pursuit of adventure; of adrenalin; a cry for help; something to do on a ‘jolly’ between the drinking. There is a commotion at the front of the plane. A daughter has arrived in the cabin with her parents’ passports but without her parents. They, meanwhile, are at the gate and have stripped out all their luggage in a vain attempt to find proof that they exist. There is a tense moment when they are reunited onboard. To my surprise the father does not berate his daughter. I’d have strangled her I make a note:’ Daughters are trouble’ and then score it out and replace with:’ The secret of

success in the mountains is good teamwork’. With me is Neill Grainger, 59. His trips have raised more than a million pounds for his employer the Ulster Cancer Foundation. It is his idea to climb Mont Blanc A former second-row forward, he has a resting heart rate of 36.This means he has a tendency to fall over because there is so little blood going to his brain. This can be somewhat embarrassing. He turned heads going up and down the slopes surrounding the Mary Peters’ track in crampons and ski poles. He snores I make another note:”Get earplugs” Martina Elliott, 41, makes up our small party. We have only brought her along out of sympathy. She had to pull out of an ultra marathon because of a chronic back problem This is by way of consolation. On her CV is finisher in the Marathon des Sables – a 140 mile run through the Moroccan desert. Neill and I are afraid she will wipe the floor with us on the slopes of Mont Blanc. I, at 55, have just retired from the BBC and am therefore

at a dangerously loose end. With the 100 mile Himalayan marathon, and the peaks of Kilimanjaro (19,340ft) and Elbrus (18,481ft) behind me I am the self-styled expedition leader –at least until we get a guide who knows what he’s doing. Mont Blanc Massif from Chamonix Belfast – Geneva is a cheap and convenient gateway to the Alps and the French town of Chamonix nestles at the foot of Mont Blanc – at 15,771 feet the highest mountain in Western Europe (Elbrus in Russia is the highest in Europe much to French displeasure!). You need stamina and endurance to climb a mountain – and, as exercise junkies, we have snowdrifts of it. But altitude is no respecter of fitness It starts to affect you at around 8,000 feet. Beyond 12,000 feet there is 40 per cent less oxygen around so it is critical that you acclimatise to the thinner air. If you don’t, you will get sick. Nausea, headaches, breathlessness come with the territory If you go up too quickly you could get very sick. If that

happens the only cure is to get down as quickly as possible. When you consider the Himalayan death zone that surrounds Mount Everest (29,035ft), Mont Blanc is not high. (Everest base camp is 1,640 feet higher than Mont Blanc) However, other dangers lurk. This mountain makes its own weather and more than a thousand people have died on its slopes. We are staying in Morzine, a further hour from Chamonix. Neill’s friends Stewarty Knox and his wife Roz will look after us. Stewarty is the envy of the village because of his car. It is an eggshell blue Morgan He waited 8 years for it He loves nothing better than to sit on the autoroutes and wait for the Mercs and BMWs to go past and then waste them. It is muggy. Thunder and lightning rolls around the surrounding mountains and we await the rain that will clear the air. We start our acclimatization. It will last 5 days and is a simple strategy Climb a little higher each day and sleep one night at over 10,000 feet. It is best to let your

body adjust while you are sleeping. Mind, I once had the experience of lying in a Himalayan dormitory in the province of Sikkim.A fellow competitor experienced a panic attack in the middle of the night. ”I’m going to die,” he screamed He didn’t, but the rest of us nearly killed him for waking us up. At best you sleep fitfully and it takes a while to get used to your heart hammering against the chest wall. Preparation on the ski slopes of Morzine We climb to the ski station at Nyan above Morzine at just over 6,000 feet, criss-crossing the red and black runs fringed with forget-me-nots. The lifts and snow cannon are silent and the meadows are, at the end of June, about to show-off the richness of their vegetation. To the east is the Col de Jeux Plane where, in a few short weeks, Floyd Landis will make his incisive drug-assisted break in the Tour de France. Back in Morzine we take to the pool. It is 50 metres for a population of 3,000Northern Ireland, population 1.5 million,

doesn’t have one single pool of that size In Dixie’s bar, the ex-pats, who dominate chalet ownership here, roar England to a 1-nil World Cup win over Ecuador. We drive to Chamonix.The High Mountain Centre is located in the heart of the town It has library stillness as mountaineers mill about seeking information, reassurance. We buy maps and book into a refuge. Especially in July and August, it is difficult to find places in mountain refuges. We will cross into Switzerland to Trient in 2 days time It has places and at 11,000 feet it is perfect for our preparation. We walk through the trees to the Grand Plan cable car station. Neill is struggling in the heat. It is a reminder to us all that we must drink plenty and fuel the body well We head above the snowline to Brevent at 8,000 feet. Across the valley, the huge massif of Mont Blanc is being swallowed by afternoon clouds. The next morning at breakfast in our hotel we sit opposite Tom and Zoe. They, like thousands of others, have

come to Morzine for the downhill mountain biking. Twenty- year-old Zoe is a mess. She has gone out over the handlebars and, without any body armour, has done herself no end of damage. Eventually after two days she will be taken to the hospital in the valley where she will be diagnosed with a broken jaw and elbow. The Avoriaz ski resort is perched on a cliff just above Morzine. It has won many architectural awards. Stewarty warns us: ”It’s like marmite You’ll either love it or hate it.” We hate it. It looks like a deserted Russian mining village –perhaps in winter with snow? From Avoriaz we get on the Dent Blanche route that takes us to the ski station at Moissettes on the Swiss border .We descend to the Brevaux refuge in the valley and drink tea. It represents a good six hours of conditioning in the warm sunshine amid the blue gentian and the dwarf red azaleas. Hill walking doesn’t get better than this Somehow the rigours to come seem a million miles away. The owners of

our hotel are the talk of the place. With 7 others, they shared a lottery win of 21 million. He was a plasterer His wife made sandwiches They were both physically sick when it was confirmed they’d won. Seven years on, they live apart and he has financial worries. He will lease the hotel to a Japanese consortium for the coming winter ski season.” 75 per cent of lottery wins end up unhappy,” he tells us ruefully The next day we travel into Switzerland to Champaux sur Lac. We are struck by how tidy and orderly everything is. Mist obscures the mountains and floods the valleys Neill and Martina enjoy my discomfiture as we take the chair lift. I suffer from vertigo It is at its worst in buildings. A sense of falling envelops me as I grip the lift’s protective arm, which prevents be from toppling into space. Martina, Neill + ‘friend’ at Swiss refuge The route is superbly way marked (as you’d expect from the Swiss). We scramble over a wide moraine onto the glacier. To our left

there is the disconcerting sound of falling rock as the sun loosens the ice. A small group is doing some rope work in a shallow crevasse Tiny fissures run across the snow. Sooner rather than later they will become gaping bergschrunds(crevasses). We crest the col onto a magnificent snow plain that stretches to the summit of the Aig du Tour. To our right, on the cliff face, is the Refuge Trient We are delighted with ourselves for having made it unguided; but are made aware of our inexperience and fragility as other parties come roped over the col and up to the refuge. Trient sleeps 60 in 6 dormitories. It is open all year round with supplies airlifted in At 11,000 feet it will provide the acclimatization we need. Compared to some of the ‘huts’ I have stayed in, it is a palace. We leave our boots, ski poles and ice axe at the outer door and chose a pair of slippers to wear. We dine on mushroom soup, sausages on a bed of sliced potatoes with a cream sauce and green salad washed

down with a carafe of white wine. Even in such remote places the French cuisine is of a high standard. Snow flurries land softly on the tin roof The morning call options are 1am, 5am or 7am.We chose 7am As we retrace our steps down the glacier, we practise with crampons. They lash onto the bottom of the boot and are an essential piece of kit. On snow, ice or rock the points provide remarkable stability. ”Have faith,” I tell Martina, who is using them for the first time. ”Heel, toe, heel, toe” We miss our turn at the blue lake and go too far down the glacier. We scramble up loose rock to regain the path. For the first time our breathing is under pressure My boot dislodges several small rocks.” Look out” One narrowly misses Neill Had it hit him, it would have inflicted serious damage. It is a salutary lesson We are not wearing helmets and are climbing too far apart. Neill crests the slope. He is carrying Martina’s crampon Without it she would not have been able to climb

Mont Blanc. A feeling is growing that we are ‘lucky’ An important psychological factor in the mountaineer’s lexicon. No sooner have we returned to Morzine than Neill’s mobile rings. It is our chief guide Christian Thrommsdorf to say that the weather forecast is good and that we climb Mont Blanc tomorrow. Adrenalin and fear of failure collide in a sickening distillation We sit in the village square contemplating the set menu and a bottle of Haute- Savoie wine. We are conscious that we must fuel up for the effort to come –but nerves and anticipation make it difficult. Swallows put on an impressive show of acrobatics and, above them, para-gliders try to find the thermals to match them. We are at the Aiguille du Midi lifts in Chamonix at 7am.Christian is already there with his guides. Four other climbers from Northern Ireland are also there led by Roger Warnock, the owner of ‘Raw Outdoors’ in Hillsborough. Marty McStay, Brian Martin and Simon Fain are all firemen. The year

before Marty and Brian had failed to make the summit because of bad weather. Christian – Everest conqueror without oxygen Christian has been to the top of Everest without oxygen. That puts him in the ‘awesome’ category. We gladly place our lives in his hands As ‘clients’, we will each pay 350 pounds for the privilege. But you can’t put a price on safety – only a third of unguided parties reach the summit; and the guide ratio will be a reassuring 1 to 2. “ I only climb Mont Blanc once or twice a year now,” says Christian,” It has become too dangerous.” We allow that to sink to the pit of our stomachs as we step into the Aiguille gondola. The Aiguille du Midi cable car is a remarkable feat of engineering taking you to 12,600 feet in the time it takes to boil an egg. It doesn’t even occur to us that this expressway ride up the mountain may be construed as cheating. It is not an issue There are 5 ‘classic’ routes up Mont Blanc, 4 within France, one from the

Italian side. We fully expect to take the ‘tourist’ Gouter route. We are wrong and are unbalanced by Christian’s decision to mix two routes: The Three Monts for the way up and The Grand Mulets for the descent. With the exceptionally warm weather and the popularity of the Gouter route, he is concerned about stone fall. Our chosen path will, therefore, be safer but technically and physically more demanding. There is a further reason why it will be more demanding. Most climbers stay in a high altitude hut the night before the summit climb leaving in darkness at around 3am for the top. Conditions underfoot are firmer and an early summit leaves loads of time for the return.” Never be on top after noon,” I was once told For us, leaving at 8am, there will be no hanging about. Because there are 7 climbers in the group I have been allocated a guide to myself. He is Greg Sauget, 31.In a former life, he was a circus high wire act Nerve and balance shouldn’t be a problem. Emerging from

the ice tunnel I see the first obstacle. A steep, narrow ridge leading down to a snow plain below the Cosmiques hut.” I can’t do that,” sticks in my throat as Greg tells me to put on my harness. He attaches a rope to the carabineer and an umbilical cord has twinned us until it is over. I put on gaiters and he scoffs at the flexibility in my Scarpa Mantra boots, tightens my crampons and we are off. My passage down the arret, ski pole in one hand ice axe in the other, is awkward and cautious. I vow that if I make the flat ground I will ignore the invasion of self-doubt and throw myself at whatever presents itself. Mont Maudit Already we are well behind the others as we slog towards the shoulder of the Mont Blanc du Tacul at 13,500 feet. Greg has an upset stomach, as I am only too aware travelling behind him. I have come prepared for the worst. My rucksack is heavy; made so by fleeces, wooly hats and gortex outer layers. Thankfully I have left the down jacket behind I carry 3

pairs of gloves – a silk pair, a woolen pair and over mittens, which can be easily anchored to the jacket so they don’t blow away. It can be minus 20C on top and storms can blow up without warning. Ironically, We are facing into a cobalt blue sky. There is hardly any wind I am wearing a silk base layer, which will absorb any sweat, a pair of lightweight Montaine trousers, a favoured Killy ski top and Walter Cecchup Cebe sunglasses with leather sidepieces. I always think I look like a pirate in the flame-patterned buff, which protects my head. The sun and heat will be the big enemies today. The UV rays, especially on snow, can do you real harm at altitude. In Russia I finished with badly swollen Mick Jagger lips This time my nose and lips are protected by sun block that hangs around my neck for regular administering. “How much water do you have?” asks Greg.” A litre” I reply” It is not nearly enough,” he snaps. Without a steady fluid intake your ability to exercise

deteriorates rapidly The dry air of the high mountains makes the effect much worse. As if to accentuate the point Greg’s urine turns the snow beside me yellow; and I change the subject to France’s chances of winning the World Cup. Suddenly we are in a queue on the way up Mont Maudit.I am delighted to see Neill and Martina also waiting. We have been going about two-and-a-half hours We are all in good shape with few signs of altitude sickness. Then I discover why there is a queue Martina and guide Severin rest ahead of the next big obstacle Ahead of me is a 55 degree ice wall. I am a virgin of ice walls but before I can panic Greg has swung onto the wall and is shouting to me to come up. I pull on the rope and almost dislodge him. He curses at me Then I realise there is a fixed rope embedded in the ice. It is chaotic. The early risers who have been to the summit are trying to descend it They are very tired. This is how I imagine it must be at the Hillary Step I jam the front

points of my crampons into the ice and move up but immediately become entangled on the rope of a climber on his way down. Somehow I wriggle free and make it over the top. Unbeknown at the time one of our guides, the Swede Linus Kulstad has had his calf muscle sliced open by a flailing crampon. It will be bad enough for Christian to contemplate a helicopter rescue The Tanzanian guides on Kilimanjaro had a saying ‘Polle,polle.’ ‘Slowly, slowly’ But shot with adrenaline, I am off down Mont Maudit, heading for the Mur de la Cote. You become very self-absorbed climbing mountains. With one goal in mind, teamwork goes out the window and you find it hard to get past the ‘me’ word. I also blame altitude for this state of mind. I am in front, where I like to be, and suddenly I make a sustained effort for the summit. But it is too soon. At 15,000 feet I start to slow dramatically I suck on glucose tablets and mini milky ways to boost my energy levels but feelings of nausea have

suppressed my desire to eat. Greg drives me on towards the Petits Rochers Rouges rocks below the summit .I am conscious only of my sustained heavy breathing stopping at the turn of each zigzag to try to suck in air. My heart is hammering out the beats I am like a dog panting in the confines of an overheating car. We are on the Petits Mulets.I have lost sight of the summit Greg shouts at me to keep going. I swear at him A long string of invective between great gasps Can altitude give you tourettes? And, suddenly we are there. At first I don’t believe it as I slump down in the snow It is 2pm in the afternoon. It has taken only 6 hours to get here There is nothing to mark the top –no plaque, no cross, no mound of stones, no flag, nothing- just the fact that everything else is now below us –the clouds and the other 59 4000metre peaks in the Alps. Usually, I cry on summits. It is hard to control emotional impulse at altitude but, on this occasion, I don’t. Greg and I embrace We

have formed a bond He tells me his father first brought him up here when he was 13. More formally I shake hands with Roger, Martin, Simon and Brian who had proved stronger on the climb. Christian and the other guides congratulate me. A fighter jet booms overhead and tips its wings in a cloudless sky. It is barely freezing on the summit and there is remarkably no wind. Apart from the ice wall, there have been no crevasses to cross and, with no wind to brush the snow off the mountain and expose the ice, the going has been good .We have been blessed Below, Neill is fighting his own battle. He is slumped over his ski poles fighting for air on the summit slopes. This is unfinished business Chilled and delusional, he had had to turn back below the summit of Elbrus 2 years ago in a snowstorm. Finally, he too is on top. He is elated” At last, after 20 years of trying, I’m a legend,” he says sinking to his knees. His face is badly burned –but for that moment there is only the summit. He

pulls an Irish flag from his rucksack He had liberated it from a ski station pylon top earlier in the week. We wrap it around us It is upside down A subsequent website caption reads:’Edward,Neill and Martina plant Ivory Coast flag on summit.’ Martina seems unphased. She wears her buff like a burka to protect her from the sun It is hard to tell what she is feeling deep down. But there is no doubt that she could have ascended much quicker. Apart from a headache, she has been unaffected by the altitude On this showing, she has huge potential to flourish in the high mountains. As experienced mountaineers are never done telling you the summit is only halfway and the descent is often where things go wrong. I hate going down. I am clumsy and overcautious and, as a result, fatigue sets in And, there is another reason. Funny as it may seem you become prone to depression All the effort has gone into getting to the top. It always represents relief rather than pride for me Suddenly that

goal has gone but the journey is far from over. Ed and guides on the Bosses arret I am looking out over the Bosses ridge. It is a truly magnificent ridge – but it is scary as hell with a thousand foot drop on either side of a narrow arret. I hesitate but Greg issues, not instructions, but orders. I will lead He has me on a short rope and is to my right. If I fall he will go over the other side of the ridge to arrest my plunge into the void. I have been taught how to prevent a fall using my ice axe But could I do it in practise? I thank God it’s not blowing a gale and step out onto my own high wire. We are down onto the relative safety of the Grand Plateau, or so I think and thence to the Petit Plateau. Greg tells me about his Japanese client who, exhausted, lay down in the snow and instructed the guide to leave him to die. He carried him down instead The going is getting progressively harder in this massive snowfield. Neill, Martina and I are sinking up to our thighs in the

melting snow. Falls are frequent as my crampons, without an anti-balling device, clog up with snow and ice. We are now very tired but Greg refuses to let us rest driving us down the slopes of the Petites Montees.Martina had had enough:” I don’t care what you say, I’m stopping for a rest,” she yells at him. There follows a brief exchange and Martina falls silent Later she explains that Gregg had lost 3 of his friends at that very spot swallowed by an avalanche. The seracs(Ice overhangs) provide the danger. In the heat, they break off, starting avalanches and few survive the volume of snow that is dislodged down the mountain. On the snowfield, there is no escape route. In front of us, there is a discussion about a rescue for Linus whose leg gash is getting progressively worse. He is in real pain and totally reliant on the ski poles to support the damaged limb. He assures Christian that he will make it But it will be at a price because it will be too late to stitch the wound

when he gets down to Chamonix . We swing to the right heading for the overnight stop at the Grands Mulets hut and glad to be out of the avalanche corridor. We have been going for nearly nine hours Neill offers me sweetened coffee in a flask. I take it gratefully The sugar floods my blood and my spirits rise. The Grands Mulets prefabricated metal hut towers above us on a rocky outcrop perched at the heart of the Bossons Glacier which tumbles spectacularly from the summit towards Chamonix.The place has the feel of Tolkien about it To access the hut, we will be required to clamber up the fixed rope on the rock face. There is now just a short traverse across a tricky ice slope to journey’s end. Suddenly, Martina loses her footing. She careers to the point where the rope attached to Neill pulls her up short. Her right boot is caught underneath her She is screaming” My foot, my bloody foot,” she shouts. She believes she has dislocated her ankle Her guide,Severin, is at her side, doing

his job, checking the damage, reassuring, getting her upright. Then Neill goes The rope pulls taught and Martina is yanked backwards and they land in a heap in an iced riverbed. At the railing, high over us at the hut, a snigger runs round at the discomfiture below. They are okay If there had been a crevasse there it would have been a different story. Eventually, we are on the hut’s verandah at around 10,000ft.It is 6pmWe have been going for 10 hours. We slump exhausted onto a wooden bench Christian has coke and beer for us. As the sugar and the alcohol take hold, so does the banter and the laughter and the retelling of the day. Around us the Bosson Glacier, Mont Blanc and the Dome du Gouter turn orange in the evening light. Marty,Neill,Martina about to be guided across glacier The next morning we are at the Jonction contemplating the crossing of the Bossons Glacier. It is constantly moving As the snow melts in the summer sunshine it will become impassable. Today the snow bridges

are mostly intact It is still daunting on a first trip through. Around us the glacier cracks like a circus master’s whip. From time to time you are required to jump across gaping holes I gaze into one but cannot see the bottom. But then we are out .The snow and ice are gone We pass the wreck of the disused cable car station at Les Glaciers and traverse over rock to the Aiguille du Midi halfway station at 7,000 feet. The 11-strong party at the halfway station As we breathe in the richer air, there is a sense of satisfaction, of contentment – but, robbed of our goal, we know it will not last. And, a debate is raging between the French and Italian authorities as to the fate of Mont Blanc. A great money-spinning tourism attraction it may be but, in the face of global warming, it is melting and crumbling –yet more climbers come each year. By one estimate, 30,000 attempt to climb Mont Blanc a year with the rescue services routinely getting 800 calls a day. In August, two

Frenchmen were killed in an avalanche and 21 climbers had to be rescued from under the Dome du Goutier when the weather turned bad. Two Japanese tourists standing beside the cable car ask me if I have been to the top. I tell them I have and they pose for a photograph with me. “Why do you climb mountains?” one asks. “That’s a very good question,” I say Ed Smith