Well, I figured there weren't enough Californians tramping around the Alps, so I climbed Mont Blanc. heh heh
I signed up for a 5 day trip to climb Mont Blanc two weeks ago. I had lots of time to prepare for my trip (cuz in the 8 months I've been in Germany I've done no exercise--besides a ton of walking). So naturally I did no exercise prior to attempting to climb the highest peak in Europe. Also, the last time I did anything comparable was my outward bound trip. And this was a bit more extreme. Anyway, here's the digs:
A few details:
Well, the trip started out pretty stressful because the airline my parents flied on (Continental--never fly them) lost their luggage for 3 days. My gear was in their luggage. Finding mountaineering boots in my size has always been a huge pain in the ass. I have always had to special order. But anyway, i had already paid for the trip so I took my day long train ride to Chamonix to try and rent a pair of boots in my size. But since Chamonix is a huge mountaineers haven, I was able to find a pair of plastic boots that fit. Plastic boots weren't my first choice (even though it was basically all snow and glacier), but they were comfortable and that was enough. Then my guide loaned me her extra ice axe and I bought a few other pieces of gear, and everything's pretty cool. A day late, but happening. And the bed and breakfast place we stayed at was really nice. Very cozy, run by a couple French people who were very nice (I think it's because the owner was a climber). The dinners were soooo good! I just wanted to stuff myself.
Okay, so the first day we woke up fairly late (6:30 if I recall). We took a gondola up into the mountains (it went to a peak called Aguille du Midi). This put us at about 12000'. Today was mainly practice and acclimatizing--minimal technical climbing. Mainly practicing crampon use on steep terrain and being roped. It was good for me because I had not really used crampons before this trip (only practice on terrain that didn't really require it). But I already had my mountains legs without crampons, so it wasn't too bad. But I did find myself saying more than once, "Aww crap, what did you get yourself into AGAIN? Didn't you learn in the Rockies how painful this is?" Anyway, kept going. Finished the first day and laid out in the sun back at the gondola station. Then around 5PM we took a gondola to the first mountain hut we stayed at. We stepped out and we were in Italy. I was a little surprised. Anyway, here's kind of a brief explanation of the Alps. They run through Italy (barely), France, Switzerland, Germany, and Austria. Chamonix is right on the border of Italy and Switzerland. There is a peak right on the connection of all 3. Mont Blanc is on the border of Italy and France. So in practice the political boundaries aren't that significant. Mainly just things like currency and toilets (some public toilets in Italy are just porcelain holes in the ground). Also, mountaineering is a little different in the Alps than in the US. In the US, you pack everything in, and then setup a base camp, which is usually cold, high, and uncomfortable. But you do it because you want to start climbing as high as possible. The key thing here is that because you pack everything in, it usually gets you pretty tired, and the sleeping is not so comfortable. In the Alps, camping is not allowed in the mountains (if you believe the signs--there were several tents visible, however), so there are several huts (small lodges) at various places throughout the Alps. They have basic meals and sleeping quarters (though they ALWAYS have a well stocked bar--mountaineer priorities). They people stay there at night because the gondolas don't run so early in the morning. Besides, they're fun and you meet interesting people (the food is also interesting). It's also nice to wake up in above 0 temperatures, which never happens in a tent. So this was all new to me.
The 2nd day we did the Rochefort Ridge. It was STEEP. We were roped up (me, my guide, and the other guy on the trip). So the basic idea was, if one of us fell, our guide would jump off the opposite side and they would hang by the rope on the ridge. The ridge was about 2 or 3 feet wide and usually both sides went hundreds of feet (or thousands) down. A sobering experience to say the least. The Rochefort Ridge was pretty technical. Both rock and snow climbing and a tiny bit of ice climbing (not straight vertical ice though--just a steep angle). Now here's the trick. Me and Peter were always being belayed by Birgit (our guide), but she climbed everything without a belay! I just couldn't believe it. Some of the technical stuff was pretty scary to climb on belay, but I would never have tried it without a belay (okay, she was technically on belay, but it was about 50 feet of slack rope, which is a long way to fall before stopping). I guess that's why she's the guide and I'm the customer. ;) I was impressed, anyway.
Back to ridge. There was a minor peak that we summitted at the end of the ridge. But the main purpose of the ridge is not the peak, just the long, steep ridges and the mixed rock/snow climbing. Climbing on rock with crampons sucks by the way. Avoid it if possible. ;) Anyway, this some of the most technical stuff I had ever done. I wasn't exactly scared, because I knew my guide was good, but I was very, very respectful of the whole situation. I saw a postcard of the ridge later, and thought "oh fuck! I climbed that?! doh!" So on the way back down Peter dropped his ice axe twice. The first time it only dropped about 10 meters. The second time it bounced about 100 meters, but fortunately didn't hit anyone or go way out of bounds. Birgit belayed Peter down and he got it back. Meanwhile I was cold. heh heh
Then we relaxed the next day cuz we wanted to be rested for Mt Blanc. We just practiced cramponing on steep ice. Climbing up and down facing the ice is not bad, but climbing down facing out (basically walking down a really steep ice field) is pretty intimidating until you get the hang of it. Birgit, of course, was just kind of wandering around. I was just practicing up, down, left, right, etc. Face out is way more tiring on your legs, anyway, so I figured I'd stick with face to the rock. Then we went to our next mountain hut (in France).
We woke up at 12:50AM to have breakfast at 1AM (3.5 hours after we went to sleep). Breakfast sucked, so I had two pieces of bread (bad idea before a long day). Then we put on all our gear and went outside along with about 50 other climbers heading for Mt Blanc. There were 3 basic sections to the ascent. The first is a long, fairly steep snow field. The switch backs up this section were lit up with headlamps. Everybody just went one after the other. This section took about 2 hours. At the top of this it was about -10 C, and there was no wind. My body was okay, but my hands were a little chilly, so I changed into a thicker pair of gloves. Then we started the second section. This part was steeper, and ended in a steep ice field. This was pretty hard work. We ended up taking a different route instead of the ice field, because so many climbers were stuck on it--traffic jam. This is actually much more than just an annoyance. Much of climbing relies on the fact that the human body burns way hotter when exercising than when still. The difference is almost ridiculous. So if you get stuck in -10/-15 C weather (minimal sunlight--none direct) for half an hour or an hour, it's really not good. So we took a longer route over just snow. Longer is fine as long as you can keep moving. We got to the top of this section and everyone was really happy, cuz from here it was much easy technically, just a long hike up the last peak. So we snapped a couple (really quick) pics and then kept moving. First we had to go down for a while to the base of the peak of Mt Blanc. Then everyone ate something quick, drank some water, maybe changed clothes, and then we were off. Finally we had direct sunlight. It was more of a morale booster than anything else, because the wind had finally picked up and it was only getting colder as we went higher. Normally while summitting, I only wear a thermal top and bottom and goretex top and bottom (2 layers), but it was cold enough that I had on a thick fleece jacket as well and was not sweating. I needed it. The last section took about 2.5 hours. About an hour from the top, I started to get pretty tired. Not dizzy or anything, just kind of a step, step, step mentality. I was starting to wonder if I could actually get to the top, but I just yelling at myself in my head, cuz I was not going to not summit. I never asked to stop, because I figured I'd be more likely to keep going while moving than to start again after stopping. Peter need a brief pause a couple times, and it was okay. But finally towards the top I just stopped looking up for the summit, cuz it was just getting depressing. It just wasn't ending... And then it did. Finally, after the last switchback, we saw other people on the summit. So we shambled over to the top and dumped our packs (which were mostly empty anyway).
Now something I had always thought was that once you're on the peak, you'd want to hang out for a while and enjoy your accomplishment. The other peaks I have climbed were all cold of course, but nothing like this. It was -15C in direct sunlight without wind. Now we didn't realize it but we were on the windy side of the peak. And after a few minutes and pics, I wanted off. It was pretty, but fricking cold in the wind. My nose and lips were chapped (I knew it was happening on the way up, but I had bigger concerns at the time) and now I could feel them too. And this was all in great weather! I was wondering what it was like in bad conditions. Then Birgit found the side with no wind, and that was a ton better. So we hung out with some of the other climbers and had a swig of schnapps that some of the female climbers had brought (these two girls really impressed me, by the way--and they were funny as hell).
Then after about a half hour we headed out. (We got there at 8:30AM). We got to our next mountain hut at around noon. The snow was pretty wet at this point (this is why you start so early to climb a mountain), and was slippery. This mountain hut was different from the others in that it had no stairs. You had to climb up rock to get in! There was a cable to hang on to, and it wasn't very tricky, but after 11 hours of climbing, I wouldn't have minded a set of stairs. Then we hung out here and met some of the other climbers from the summit. The weather here was good and I spent the next 3 hours laying in the sun, and got my second injury on the trip (a sunburn). The first injury was when I cut my thumb cutting a Bergsteiger sausage for lunch. It was fun. Then the next day we hiked down to the gondola and went back to Chamonix.
I was pretty proud of this trip. My guide didn't like the fact that I didn't have much crampon experience, but I had asked the company ahead of time if it would be a problem and they said no. But I think was impressed by my pace up the mountain (though she wasn't happy when I told here I had done no excercise for 8 months--but I couldn't resist, cuz I knew she had her doubts about me). heh heh Anyway, everything worked out. And everyone was happy at the end. So it was all cool.
Then I took a train to Switzerland, and met up with parents again. Then we spent 3 days in Venice, Italy, and 2 days in Paris. I won't go into much details on Venice, but it is probably the first place I've been to here, that I classify as "have to once in your life". Venice is amazing. It would be perfect for a honeymoon, a single backpacker, a stop in a group tour, whatever. It is just plain awesome. Paris was also cool. We went to the Louvre (it's hard to get bored of that place). Then we headed back to Dusseldorf, where the hotel owner was pissed cuz we came in so late. And I got fined 50 francs ($8) on the train back for not marking my Eurail pass that day. He was such an asshole. Oh well, I probably would be too if I was a 45 year ticket checker. But as it turns out, he has to continue leading his life and I get to continue leading mine. I can live with that.
Anyway, I took a ton of pics with my new digital cam, and as soon as I have a chance to sort through them I will put them out on my web site (hopefully this weekend). The Mont Blanc pix are AWESOME. Really. The Venice pics are good too.
Oh here's a funny tidbit. I was in the (underground) train station the other day and there was a group of breakdancers. They were doing headspins and everything. It was pretty cool to watch. But how about that, breakdancers in the subway?
Take care all
hugs from abroad
matt