Climbing Mont Blanc: Ascent Day 2 - Down

• Introduction


• Preparation - Booking


• Preparation - Fitness


• Preparation - Gear


• Training Days


• Restday


• Ascent Day 1


• Ascent Day 2 - Up


• Ascent Day 2 - Down


• Epilogue

Suddenly our guide slings his pack. Go go he says. Clouds coming in. Guide looks quite nervous. We start belting down the mountain. I feel ecstatic. Going down is so easy compared do the murder of the ascent. Guide berates us for our poor cramponing. Like a duck. Spread your feet watch me. Flat foot. And when it’s steep, like this - dig your heel. My friend has problem with his crampon coming loose and we stop to readjust.

We meet our two other friends and their guide coming up. I’m bollocksed shouts one forlornly. 45 seconds to the top lies Mac to him, you’re nearly there. I’m bollocksed replies the ascender again. That was strange. Hope he’s ok.

At one point a spectacular spindrift suddenly develops around Mac. He stops and crouches, briefly enveloped in a swirl of snow. On, on, shouts the guide.

[caption id="attachment_166" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="sun rises through the alps"][/caption]

On the way down I see it all. The Bosses Ridge - a narrow knife of snow with sheer drops on either side. I can’t believe I crossed this already and didn’t notice. I see the huge white sweep down to the big round dome of the Dom du Gouter. Our guide stops to point out the Matterhorn, a giant craggy Swiss peak. He points the Bérangère. We see the sun-rise coming, a long red ribbon flaming against the serrated edges of distant peaks. Then he tells us to turn and take one last look at the Mont Blanc. Its peak will now disappear from view as we descend.

[caption id="attachment_168" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="last look back at mont blanc (see specks of other parties)"][/caption]

Back to Gouter hut. One of our party is there. Utterly dejected. His partner had to turn back 300 meters from the summit with exhaustion. The guy who turned back had been shouting at me during training. We didn’t like him. Schadenfreude. But heart-break for the other man, universally liked, who was roped to the returner and hence also had to turn back. Guide tells us not to stay long or we will get drowsy. A can of coke and we are off back down the icy spine of the needle. Away we climb from the Gouter enchantment, its golden windows sirens calling out across the snow.

We pick our way through a stegosaurus of ice and rock. Slower now but passing people all the same. I realise I am eventually getting the hang of what to do with the rope. Hang back and keep it close to taut until my companion has moved. Then step forward as he does. The pace is relaxed for me now. I could go faster but I get to look around and chat to the guide. He climbed his first peak at seven, Mont Blanc at fifteen. With pride he tells us about the mountain guide profession. Over a thousand in France. Fifteen are women. One of the older guides who was with us has scaled Mont Blanc over 500 times. No-one knows for sure how many.

[caption id="attachment_169" align="alignleft" width="500" caption="me at dawn"][/caption]

This time the Grand Couloir looms large for us because we can see the rocks careering down it beside us. Look my friend says trying to stop and watch. Watch your footsteps, keep going barks the guide. He knows we need to concentrate now that we are tired and not start to freak about the upcoming dash. This time the run across the corridor seems to take ages. Even when we have apparently reached the other side we are not safe and he urges us on quickly.

Eventually we are out of danger and crampons off for long but non-icy descent to lunch and then the tram. More chat. Guide tells me is going rock climbing in Corsica on holiday. He also does ice-climbing. You’re a mad bastard my friend tells him. I tell the guide I am really glad he has good English. My friend tells him we like him because he is a mad bastard. You like me because you have no choice he says flashing us a white smile. He knows a kiss-ass or two when he meets them.

Over rocks very sore on the joints and bones for this hour. We continue the fast pace down to the final hut where lunch is waiting and the group reassembles. Conversation is tired and strange. Tram takes forever back to Saint Gervaise. Later out of stinking clothes, a long shower, and to restaurant for a feast of kings. I will sleep like a dead dog, and wake at 07:45 am bright, refreshed and ready for a crap that has been compacting patiently inside me for the last two days.

Epilogue