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- Nov 14, 2005
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- 11,135
More great ones. Thanks for the pics. Those nekid ones......man....shrinkage....cold.....ergh...whoa.
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Alps 2008: Tribute to BladeForums!
- Thread starter Mikel_24
- Start date
After comming down from the Pollux in Swizerland we thought it was worth to go back to Chamonix and now that we were fully acustomed to the heights we could tackle more difficult climbs. We wanted to climb the Aguile Verte, the Chere Goulotte and maybe give a try to the Mont Blanc. I had been up there two years ago with my pal Manu but Iñaki had never been to the Mont Blanc. After some research we decided to give a try to the Grand Mulets route. This route involves crossing the Bossons Glacier which was very caotic at this time of the year.
You can see the glacier in the middle of the picture. We needed to go to the Grand Mulets hut which is located in one of the rocky spots in the middle of the glacier.
The glacier was in such a bad condition that the hut keeper closed the hut and came down to Chamonix. The good news is that there is always a room left open (16 beds with blankets) as well as the free kitchen (no gas, no food… but sometimes you get lucky and find some freebys… can’t count on them though). My greater worry was all about water and the need of melting snow (more fuel to carry). As we discovered later on, we got luck and find an almost empty huge tank with enough water for us three.
We were supposed to take anywhere from 3 to 4 hours from the middle station of the cable car to the hut. We thought it could take us way longer given the conditions of the glacier and we didn’t want to cross it at night. We got up early, had breackfast and headed for the cable car. From there we had to make a huge traverse on rocky terrain to reach the Bossons glacier.
Manu and me looking up worried about the strong winds and the clouds above us.
Me posing before getting into the glacier.
Random shots of the traverse and Iñaki crossing a waterfall after screwing up while trying to find the trail.
Right when we were about to get into the glacier we saw two guys coming at us. They were from the rescue service and were looking for a guy who seemed to be climbing alone and might have fallen into one of the many crevasse. The tried to talk us off getting into the glacier telling us that not even they were able to cross it. Manu and Iñaki were not sure about getting into it but I finally cheered them a little bit and managed to convince them.
A few shots of the glacier where you can see why the rescue service didn’t want us to get in there.
If you look closely you can see us in those pictures. We didn’t even rope up. The only good news about glaciers being so open is that anything you step on is rock solid ice. There are no snow bridges that could fall down when you step on them. We had to do some serac climbing and downclimbing to get to the other side but didn’t take us too long.
When we where about to reach the hut we came across a german guy who was going down with crampons on but no ice axe or trekking poles in his hands. I thought it was the guy that the rescue service was looking for but seems he was not. I unstrapped the ice axe from his backpack and gave it to him telling him to please follow our steps until he reached the other side of the glacier. We had to cross a few crevasses partially covered with snow in the upper side of the glacier that were not that safe. We never knew if that guy made it out or not. Seriously, that guy worried us A LOT.
Iñaki and Manu taking the last steps to the hut. The chains and ladders made it easy.
We were completely alone there and this is what we found: 16 beds with blankets neatly folded and comfy mattreses!!! Great. Now it was time to eat, rest and kill some time.
Keep reading.....
You can see the glacier in the middle of the picture. We needed to go to the Grand Mulets hut which is located in one of the rocky spots in the middle of the glacier.
The glacier was in such a bad condition that the hut keeper closed the hut and came down to Chamonix. The good news is that there is always a room left open (16 beds with blankets) as well as the free kitchen (no gas, no food… but sometimes you get lucky and find some freebys… can’t count on them though). My greater worry was all about water and the need of melting snow (more fuel to carry). As we discovered later on, we got luck and find an almost empty huge tank with enough water for us three.
We were supposed to take anywhere from 3 to 4 hours from the middle station of the cable car to the hut. We thought it could take us way longer given the conditions of the glacier and we didn’t want to cross it at night. We got up early, had breackfast and headed for the cable car. From there we had to make a huge traverse on rocky terrain to reach the Bossons glacier.
Manu and me looking up worried about the strong winds and the clouds above us.
Me posing before getting into the glacier.
Random shots of the traverse and Iñaki crossing a waterfall after screwing up while trying to find the trail.
Right when we were about to get into the glacier we saw two guys coming at us. They were from the rescue service and were looking for a guy who seemed to be climbing alone and might have fallen into one of the many crevasse. The tried to talk us off getting into the glacier telling us that not even they were able to cross it. Manu and Iñaki were not sure about getting into it but I finally cheered them a little bit and managed to convince them.
A few shots of the glacier where you can see why the rescue service didn’t want us to get in there.
If you look closely you can see us in those pictures. We didn’t even rope up. The only good news about glaciers being so open is that anything you step on is rock solid ice. There are no snow bridges that could fall down when you step on them. We had to do some serac climbing and downclimbing to get to the other side but didn’t take us too long.
When we where about to reach the hut we came across a german guy who was going down with crampons on but no ice axe or trekking poles in his hands. I thought it was the guy that the rescue service was looking for but seems he was not. I unstrapped the ice axe from his backpack and gave it to him telling him to please follow our steps until he reached the other side of the glacier. We had to cross a few crevasses partially covered with snow in the upper side of the glacier that were not that safe. We never knew if that guy made it out or not. Seriously, that guy worried us A LOT.
Iñaki and Manu taking the last steps to the hut. The chains and ladders made it easy.
We were completely alone there and this is what we found: 16 beds with blankets neatly folded and comfy mattreses!!! Great. Now it was time to eat, rest and kill some time.
Keep reading.....
Killling time at high altitudes is always more rewarding when you find some interesting magazines among mountain climbing gear catalogs…
This is the outhouse. Basicaly a hole in the floor. If you hit the bulls eye the turd will take an over 20m fall into the glacier… or the wall if it is windy… or it even may come back at you if there is a hell of storm going out there! Whenever I go to any of this outhouses I empty my pockets in the hut prior to going there. I can’t picture abseiling through a crap covered wall to recover my camera, headlamp, knife or whatever.
I have a very very bad sleep so after my pals went to bed (20:00 or so) I went outside to take a few pictures and figure out what to do next day. The usual route involves glacier crossing the whole time and there is a certain risk of ice falls because you are walking under seracs (hanging glaciers that tend to fall whenever they want, not dictated by the sun or the heat, like avalanches do). I decided to cross the glacier to the other side, climb to the Dome the Gouter arete and follow it to the summit of the Dome the Gouter, where we will met the normal route from the Gouter hut to the summit.
A picture from the hut door and the arête we would climb at night (the one that has sun in one side and shadow in the other, easy). Crossing the glacier seemed easy from here but at night, with just our headlamps and with no references… ain’t that easy!
Iñaki and Manu didn’t want to cross the glacier again the next day, so instead of going down again through the Grand Mulets route, we would carry everything along and go down through the Gouter route.
We got up at 0:00 and we were walking by 1:20. We went down to the glacier using the chains and before we even steped on the snow we roped up. I was roped up, Manu was roped up as well and Iñaki was ABOUT to tie himself to the rope when I decided to start walking. I took no more than three steps and the ground disappeared from under my feet….. Ohhhh crap! I was hanging in there from my armpits. I looked down and all I couldn’t even see the end of the crevase! I managed to get out of the hole myself and said: Ok guys, THIS IS NOT the right way… Lucky me I didn’t fall any more because my partners were not by any means ready to arrest the fall. What a way to start our climb!
The glacier crossing took us a while and a few back and forths until we found the best path. Once we reached the arête it was supposed to be all straight forward. It was step but nothing we couldn’t handle. Iñaki wasn’t feeling too well. He didn’t sleep well or something. I was very lightly dressed thinking we would be walking faster and I was freezing my nuts off every time we stopped. To make things even funnier it was cloudy and very very windy (weather reports said over 90km/h).
Two shots taken as soon as we had enough daylight.
We kind of messed it up a little bit at the summit of the Dome de Gouter. It is not a pointy summit, it is more like a rounded one so you don’t really know when you reach it. We finally saw a few guys coming coming from the Gouter hut and followed them to the Vallot emergency hut. This is not a hut with blankets, water, outhose and a hot chick hut keeper with hearthwarming smile. Nop. This is an all metal cube with a somewhat insulated floor, full of waste, bottles, emergency blankets tored off, pukes and stuff like that. Being at 4200m doesn’t help at all those who suffer from altitude sickness. Some try to rest in there instead of going down a bit more to the Gouter hut (3800m) which is like 2h away at most.
The hut itself.
We got into the hut. We arrived there pretty wasted. Manu was ok but worried about the weather. Iñaki had headache and didn’t want to continue. I was pretty much hypothermic. I was wearing base layer, a 100 fleece with the chest in windproof material and a shell (I put it on when I was already freezed). I changed my gloves and put my belay jacket on. As usual I put my gloves inside my fleece to keep them warm but they were so cold that I started shivering and almost puked. It took me a 5 minute rest with my head between my knees to recover. We ate something, drank something and talked about what we were going to do. Iñaki was going down no matter what and Manu didn’t really want to go to the summit with such a bad weather. I was ok now and I knew the route so I could tackle it by myself but didn’t think it was a bright idea given the weather. I was about to go down with them when we spotted another Spanish group who was dealing with the same problem. One of them had severe altitude sickness and most of the group was going down but there was one of them who wanted to go up. Once again we swapped partners and I left with this guy while my friends went down with the other group. Anytime we go climbing we carry two sets of keys for the vehicle so if something like this happens, anyone can get to the car.
It took us like 1h45min to get to the summit of the Mont Blanc from the Vallot hut. I was getting my skiing mask iced the whole time and needed to scratch it off with my gloved hands. We were going up there when we noticed a guy somewhat unprepared climbing alone. I talked to him and he happened to be from Poland and asked us if he could climb with us. We were going unroped so we agreed. He was wearing pretty much appropriate gear but his boots and gloves (wool with a bit of Thinsulate) where not warm enough.
We reached the summit but couldn’t take too many pictures from up there because we couldn’t see much at all.
As you can see my clothes are iced, same as my trekking poles (twice as thick now!) I was wearing all the clothes I had, base layer, fleece, polarguard jacket, shell and thick gloves.
And of course….
Bladeforums tribute! (With the guy from Poland in the back… notice the souvenir gloves…
. Here in Europe I can't take Bladeforums any way higher... Well, the Elbrus is there but I am not sure if we are up to the task. Not for the climb itself, but for the logistics needed to more around over there.We went down as fast as we could. We had to stop twice because the guy from Poland was wearing strap on crampons and they loosened up once in a while. He had his hands numb so I had to strap them on for him.
We reached the Vallot hut. Now the wather was better so we could take off some clothes. The temp had rised a bit and the snow was sticky. My crampons where botting up badly (boxy like construction… crap…
so I ditched them in my pack and downclimbed without them from 4200m to the Gouter hut.Keep reading...
This sign is right above the hut. Two years ago we watched a rescue here. The chopper got to the arête, opened the door and fetched a guy right there in front of us! They didn’t even land! (There wasn’t any room anyway).
Two a pictures of the rescue I am telling you about. As you can see it was way sunnier two years ago.
I don’t have any pictures of us going down from the Gouter hut because I just went down as fast as I could to try to catch up with my friends. I was at mid descent when I recibed a call on my cell phone (we are pretty much over Chamonix so you have good coverage). It was Iñaki telling me that about 300m from the cable car station he had taken a bad step and had sprained his ankle. Oh well, no more climbing for us this year!
This is a picture of Manu downclimbing from the Gouter hut.
Well, I guess this is all for now. I hope you liked the pictures. You will have to wait until winter season here in Spain to see any more ice/snow climbing. Right now I am about to flee from work and go to the beach… Warm weather, suntanning and nekid girls… what else could I ask for?
Mikel
Martin Swinkels
BANNED
- Joined
- Mar 6, 2005
- Messages
- 760
Looks like you guys had a lot of fun out there..
I climbed the summits you mentioned myself and I know how impressive the surroundings are..
Thanks for posting!
I climbed the summits you mentioned myself and I know how impressive the surroundings are..
Thanks for posting!
- Joined
- Jun 29, 2007
- Messages
- 4,698
Looks like fun!!!
It reminds me of a prize Freebirds Burrito has if you take a pic in front of something famous with their t shirt on (Like Great Pyramid or Statute of Liberty)
Every time I see a Cruh Vass I think of this movie===>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Touching_the_Void
Thanks for thinking of BF
I am verklempt......
It reminds me of a prize Freebirds Burrito has if you take a pic in front of something famous with their t shirt on (Like Great Pyramid or Statute of Liberty)
Every time I see a Cruh Vass I think of this movie===>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Touching_the_Void
Thanks for thinking of BF
I am verklempt......
Hey Martin! If you have better pictures of this summits feel free to post them here. I didn't get lucky in the Monte Rosa or the Mont Blanc so the few i have are blurry.
Trent Rock said:
This is the first thing that crossed my mind when I fell into that crevase... LOL. I saw that movie long ago. Talk about survival in extreme conditions... wow! Joe Simpson seems like a tough guy, that's for sure.
DocArnie said:
I am not at all into mid/long distance running. To be fair I should say I am not into running at all! I guess that long distance running is harder than what we do. We have to cope with bad weather conditions, heavy gear and lack of O2 up there but I think that running a marathon is more psicologicaly demanding. I can train my body but trainning my mind to do such a thing seems way harder.
Mikel