Four days of mountaineering in the Écrins, combining snow, rock and glacier terrain from Pic d’Arsine to Roche Faurio, with spring feeling more like winter.
And that's the summer season officially open! Well... “summer” might be pushing it a little. For this first mountaineering trip of the year, conditions up high are still decidedly wintry.
I'm meeting Nuno, Julien, Valentine, Gabriel and Louka for four days in the mountains. Up here, skis are still the best way to get around, but I'm hoping to find conditions that work for simple, non-sliding bipeds like us... Just in case, we bring snowshoes anyway!
Our first day is spent around the hut for a bit of mountain training: snow, rock and ropework... The idea is to improve everyone's technical skills while gradually moving towards greater autonomy in the mountains... so that one day they can do without the guide!!
The next day, we have a long training day with a short mixed outing to Pointe Étienne. A first taste of wallowing through snow and scrambling over mountain rock... mindful climbing, three points of contact at all times, and testing every hold as we go! In the afternoon, we head onto the glacier for some crampon practice and a little glaciology.
For our third day, we head towards Pic d'Arsine for a first experience of moving together on a rocky ridge...
Miraculously, the snow holds our weight pretty well up to 3,100 m. Beyond that, though, we have to admit defeat and put on the snowshoes. They prove very useful for reaching the Col du Glacier Blanc, where our ridge begins...
Clouds spilling over from Savoie are more persistent than expected. We're in the thick of it, and it's snowing!
A chance for my companions to get a little taste of climbing in bad weather... and it's not even cold or windy!
The ridge is perfect for learning without too much pressure: using natural features for protection, moving together on a tight rope, shoulder belays and a few other mountaineering tricks...
We then make our way laboriously back down to the glacier through truly awful snow: too soft to slide down on our backsides and not supportive enough for the snowshoes.
Still better with snowshoes than without them, though!
What a treat!
We reach the Écrins hut in the middle of the afternoon, where Damien cooks us a first-class omelette — just what the whole team needs to recover!!
We're the only ones up here, thoroughly spoiled by a hut guardian taking great care of us. A real privilege before the weekend rush...
Our last day together.
At 3 a.m., the northeast wind is blowing hard outside and the hut thermometer is showing a pleasant -6°C!!
This might sting a little!
Gabriel and Valentine decide that a lie-in sounds more appealing, so the four of us set off with Louka, Julien and Nuno.
The cold outside is biting, but once we're on the glacier the wind eases off and, as long as we keep moving, we feel surprisingly comfortable.
I suggest switching off our headlamps so we can fully enjoy the magic of the night, lit only by a thin crescent moon.
At least the cold has done wonders for the snow conditions today. The surface holds our weight and crunches beneath our crampons all the way to around 3,500 m, below the shoulder of Roche Faurio.
Since early this morning, I've been watching plumes of snow being whipped up by the wind, stripped from the north faces and deposited on the sheltered slopes we're supposed to climb...
To reach the shoulder, I choose to stay close to the rocks and follow the path of an old avalanche. It somehow feels more reassuring when the slope has already released!
At first, the snow supports us perfectly.
Then, for a few steps, we start sinking in.
That's the first warning sign for me.
Wallowing through fresh snow on foot when the snowpack hasn't fully transformed yet... not ideal.
Then the snow supports us again.
I keep climbing, but I've already decided that if we start sinking again, we'll turn around.
Thirty vertical metres higher, I sink into the snow once more.
Stop.
We're going down.
I take a few minutes to explain the reasoning behind the decision to my companions...
Learning when to turn back is part of mountaineering too.
After picking up Gabriel and Valentine at the Écrins hut, we head back down towards civilisation...
It's so cold today that even at midday, the snowfields below the Glacier Blanc hut are still frozen solid!!
Thanks everyone for four great days and for keeping such good spirits despite conditions that weren't always easy!!
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