To the summit and back

Posted on January 9, 2008

To the summit and back – A personal account of myself and James’s successful summit of Mont Blanc. The words below correspond with the Mont Blanc Massif Photographs in the gallery.

James arrived the following evening, a friend from England. He is much bigger and stronger than I am. He had some experience in the Alps and together we were going to tackle some more mountains. Over a beer I told him about the week I had just had, and the disappointment the weather had caused. He suggested we go straight up and attempt Mont Blanc immediately. Slightly surprised and pleased I agreed and we decided to leave the following morning. James had been up to 4200m on Mont Blanc before being turned round because of high winds and was keen to summit. So that was sorted!

We slept in; I was tired from the previous week and James from his journey. We sorted out our kit and packed up, then headed into town to pick up some last minute supplies. In order to get on the route we took a ski lift and a small train deep into the mountains up to around 2500m. From here the route was a 3 to 4 hours of rocky ascent up to a mountain hut. The air was light as clouds drifted in and out, revealing then hiding the way up to the hut. Ahead we could see the tiny outline of some other mountaineers making their way up the mountain. Mont Blanc is very popular and at this time of year incredibly busy. The climbing was easy. We set out at a good pace and arrived at the hut in just over 3 hours. James was going very well considering he had not had any time to acclimatise.

We arrived mid-afternoon and settled down for a cup of tea and some food. This mountain hut was quite new and was very warm and comfortable; I had heard rumours about the higher mountain hut being not so pleasant. From this hut I could just make out the higher mountain hut and the route we would have to take to reach it. That section of the climb was to be by far the most dangerous, due to falling rock and ice and the steepness of the accent. During the night we all awoke to the loud crashing of an avalanche. A large section of rock and ice had come away from the face of the mountain and gone crashing down the valley to the side of the hut. James looked at me and raised his eyebrows, I smiled and went back to sleep. I was not scared or worried about the possibility of this happening again tomorrow, for some reason I was excited. This was the first time I had been somewhere with the real possibility of death and I was not worried.

The hut rose together in the morning and in small groups set off up the mountain to the foot of the steep rocky section. James and I decided not to rope up together and headed out in to the cold. It was a beautiful morning, clear and crisp with a light westerly wind. At the foot of the rocky section we stopped and put on our harnesses, much of the route above had fixed lines which meant we could clip in for our safety. The climbing was not hard, more of a hard scramble, but the ground under foot was very loose and very easy to dislodge. Occasionally a small stone would be dislodged above and come tumbling past and bring you back to reality that what we were doing was real. I was absorbed, totally focused and we had soon made good progress up the mountain.

We reached the top of the rocky section and arrived at the hut; poised strategically, towering proudly on the edge of this huge rock section we had just climbed. As the afternoon passed more climbers arrived, some of them looking exhausted, others not even tired. We were high up above the clouds now at 3800m. This meant we had 1000m to climb to the summit on the following day. After some lunch, I wandered around the hut to have a look at the route and could see a couple of climbers heading back towards the hut. When they passed, I said hello. They were Polish and had reached the summit earlier but it had taken them a long time, they were both exhausted. I congratulated them and they continued on down towards the lower mountain hut.The afternoon filtered passed as we played cards in the hut and chatted to other climbers. The view outside was truly magical; I put on my down jacket and went outside to enjoy it. Being above the clouds has to be one of the best feelings I have ever encountered. I was being treated to a reward perhaps for the effort we had both put in so far. I looked up towards our route for the next day, the summit was hidden out of view, and hoped desperately that we would reach the summit tomorrow.

As I had taken all the photographs, I realised that there were not any of myself. I turned the camera around at arm’s length and took a photograph of myself in my down jacket. I was cocooned by it, trapping my body heat in. It was one of the pieces of my equipment that allowed me to be here, to experience these feelings. We left the hut and crossed a short stretch of crispy snow and pitched our tent with some other climbers. The hut was completely full, with no space left at all. We quickly dug a small platform and put up our tent. We laid out our mats and sleeping bags and settled in for the night. It was only 7.30 pm but we were going to up at 2 am to begin walking.

I woke at 1.45 am and silently packed the essentials we would need for our summit attempt, everything else would stay in the tent. We had both slept well even though it was around -8⁰C outside the tent. We eat some dried fruit and biscuits and filled our pockets with some cherios! I stepped out of the tent and into the chilly night, there was not a whisper of wind. Head torches flickered on and off as other climbers got themselves prepared. Together we roped up, made one last check and headed off into the darkness. I was out in front with James about 8 metres behind on the other end of the rope. The first section was a gentle curve and then it changed, the accent began, burning my calves. After about an hour it began flattening out slightly and we paused to look around. We were smothered in complete darkness, the huge mountains sleeping calmly through the night. I looked back down the path we had just taken up the mountain. I could see lots of little head torches all snaking their way up the mountain towards us. We set off again, only to stop once more at the emergency refuge hut to have a drink and a quick snack. From here, it was a 2 hour uphill slog to the summit. The mountain would become narrower as we got closer to the peak and we were soon on the top ridge. This was the most exposed part of the mountain, an unforgiving knife-edge drop to one side and a steep snow slope to the other. We continued on carefully, still under the light of our head torches, as the wind picked up and blew the loose snow up into the air.

Not much was said between us except at rest points and we only stopped twice before we got the summit. At around 5.30 am James and I reached the summit and turned to congratulate one another. We were standing on the summit of Western Europe’s highest mountain, Mont Blanc. At 4808m, my watch was reading a temperature of -12⁰C, but we were both warm under our clothing. The wind had picked up slightly and now a 20 mph wind brushed past us. The wind made the temperature feel more like -22⁰C. We both felt very good and strong. We shook hands and patted each other on the back. To the east, the skyline was changing colour to deep blue and orange, the sun was just beginning to start rising. Everything was perfect. We were the first people to reach the summit that day; something not many people can say they have done. We turned and began our decent, the wind was now a little stronger, perhaps reaching 30mph. It was not long before we passed the first people who coming up behind us and still making their way to the top. As soon as there was enough light I turned off my head torch and allowed my eyes to adjust. There was not a cloud in the sky above us, with just a blanket of white cloud softly lapping at he lower edges of the mountains deeper in the valley.

The decent from the summit hardly took any time at all in comparison to the accent and we were soon back at the emergency refuge hut. We decided to go in and have a quick break. Unlike on the way up when it had been empty, it was now packed full of people taking a rest on their way up the mountain. Some of them looked in really bad shape, unable to cope with the altitude, or just simply exhausted. We said hello to few guys that we had met the night before in the hut, wished them luck and continued with our decent. By now the sun had just come up over the horizon and was casting a beautiful clear light across the mountainside. We stopped to take it all in, a very special moment, we had just summited and we were heading back for breakfast by 7 am. The feeling of passing people in the opposite direction seemed to build confidence within me, and for the first time I felt relaxed and in control. As the wind whipped around us, it picked up all the loose snow and drove it across the mountainside, giving the impression that the ground was alive, moving and spinning towards the sun. A few hours later and we were back at our tent. We packed up our kit and headed towards the hut. We stopped and looked back at what we had just achieved, and at the campsite. This was easily the best campsite at which I had ever stayed, and definitely the highest one. It felt like a strange good bye, but we were still far from being finished with this mountain. A short distance further and it was no longer necessary to be roped together. James tied up the rope and put it away in his rucksack. We still had 5 hours until we would get of the mountain but it was now all rock and flat snowfields. We set off back down to the valley, tired and hungry but feeling very proud of what we had just achieved. I could not refrain from smiling to myself all the way down, desperate to tell someone what we had just done.

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