Standing on the roof of Europe:

Once the rock-fall had finally stopped, we gingerly moved out from the safety of cover. Still shaking from our narrow miss, we moved up the ridge, always keeping watch for another rock-fall and other places of shelter. The air was tense.

After what felt like 10 minutes of slowly creeping up the ridgeline, we took our places. My heart was still racing from the unexpected adrenaline dump I’d just experienced, and I struggled to focus. Remembering a mindfulness technique that I had learnt a few months earlier, I counted my breath to allow my limbic system to regain control of my highly aroused amygdala. Thankfully, It worked enough for me to concentrate on supporting the remainder of our team to get across and into the welcoming safety of the ridgeline. When everyone had crossed, we grouped to reflect on what had happened. Nervous laughter cloaked the realisation that we had been dangerously close to catastrophe.

Gear

“Travel light, freeze at night”

Our approach to the climb was to travel light to give us the best possible chance of summiting. To do this, we booked places in the Goûter hut, which stands around 3,815 metres high. This meant we wouldn’t be taking the heavier items such as sleeping bags or cookers but would still take vital kit such as bivvy bags, down jackets, avalanche probes etc.

From the hut, we woke around 1am and stepped off at 2am, with a plan of summiting around dawn, then heading back down to catch the last cable car to Chamonix.

Eating was an interesting experience. Part of me wanted to take traditional boil-in-the-bag mountain meals, but instead I decided to try a more traditional diet of whatever was available in Chamonix. I took Toby’s sage advice and packed a base of cheese and salami.

This served well on 3 counts:

a)     It didn’t freeze;

b)     It gave me enough fat to sustain long aerobic exercise (whereby fat is the main source of energy); and

c)     It lasted throughout the day and tasted good despite the temperature.

Around the base of cheese and salami, I added more easily accessible items to eat on the hoof, such as nuts, chocolate bars (also important for morale), crisps and flapjacks. I packed a sufficient quantity and variety of food to give me enough energy if for any reason we couldn’t eat at the Goûter hut. Since the hut is mostly supplied by helicopter, I figured there was a reasonable risk this could occur.

The Goûter Hut

After the close encounter crossing the Grand Couloir, the team made its way up the remainder of the Via Ferrata route in relative quiet. Almost everyone spent some time dwelling on thoughts of what might have happened if we’d been a few moments slower or quicker. Our collective spirit had been dealt a hand in reality; we knew we had been extremely lucky not to take a casualty on the crossing. After around 7 hours, we got to the Goûter hut and set into our familiar routine of checking in, identifying our beds and working through our kit quickly enough to get to sleep. Around dinner, the team reflected on that afternoon’s experience and quickly made light of it.  We’d spent five days together as a team, and had bonded to the point that, terrifying as it was, the Grand Couloir experience only made us stronger. After a couple of very expensive yet hugely anticipated beers, we made our way to our dorms to get some much needed rest – we would be waking in 6 hours to start our climb in complete darkness.

The longest day

After many nervous trips to the bathroom, I woke up at 1:15 am to start the short list of tasks to be ready to set off at 2 am.  My body was tired after the previous day’s scrambling, but the prospect of finally seeing the summit in mere hours was more than enough motivation. ‘Rope team awesome’ (as we’d named our trio) was to lead the two other groups to the summit. Now it got really exciting.

After bidding au revoir to two of our group suffering from extreme vertigo and altitude sickness, the remaining three teams set off up the mountain in search of the summit. The scene at night was spectacular: the Milky Way and constellations were all in full view and would easily distract you from looking out for crevasses and not stepping on the rope with your sharp crampons.

As the hours passed, we slowly snaked our way up the mountain. We first found our way onto the Dome du Goûter, a huge flat plateau that looked enormous in the dark night. From there, we continued to trail blaze through the fresh powdery snow and onwards to our next rendez-vous (RV)– the Vallot Hut.

By now, we’d reached 4,300 metres – still 500 m (vertical height) from the summit. We stopped briefly when we realised that one of our 10 remaining group members was getting quite sick. The thin air and cold had hit him hard. According to my Garmin watch, it was hovering around -20C, and we still had a long way to go up an incredibly narrow ridge, the infamous Bosses Ridge.

We’d heard a story of a climber who had died only a week earlier on the Bosses Ridge when his crampon caught on his other trouser leg, sending him sliding to his death.  This chilling reminder of the real dangers one faces on the mountain made it an easy decision to safely deposit our suffering team member in the warmth and safety of Vallot Hut.  Here he could get warm and acclimatise to the lower oxygen level whilst we pushed on to the summit, collecting him on the way back down.

With many false peaks, Mont Blanc constantly tricks you into thinking you are near the top. I lost count of the number of times I went through the two-step cycle of elation of summit, followed by frustration that it was in fact, not the summit and there was still a long way to go. Maybe someone should rename it the mountain of false summits (Montagne des Faux Sommets?).