4808m

I awoke, if you could call it that.

My mouth and eyes were moistureless. The room was like an oven and I could feel beads of sweat running down my back as I turned over. God I felt rough. I was desperate for a pee but I couldn’t move, I felt paralysed. It was an altitude hangover.

To make matters worse, the toilets were outside, we were almost 4km up and my headtorch was in my bag on the floor. I considered just peeing the bed. The room had no electric lights so I had to fumble around to find my torch after a daring drop into darkness from the bunk. I found it and whilst in the process of putting it on my head I snapped the elastic. I opened the outside door and gasped as the icy wind ripped through my fleece. The toilets outside the hut are a traumatic experience and I will abstain from going into detail here. Suffice to say that without my torch on my head, I failed to see a low steel beam on the way down and duly smacked my forehead on it. I grabbed the terrace railing to regain my balance and vomitted into the darkness. I sat on the stairs for a moment, trying to work out where I was and what had just happened. The cold eventually forced me back inside.

Inside, the bunk room was alive with dancing head torches. I sat at Steves bunk trying to find some kind of focus. Chris noticed something was wrong and when I told him I had just thrown up, Steve suddenly piped up with the option that I could rope with Patrick because the pace would suit me better if I wasn’t feeling well. Chris then reiterated the option. This annoyed me as it sounded premeditated at the time, as if they had been discussing the option in my absence. So I stubbornly refused, insisting it would pass. In retrospect, I realise that I was being way paranoid, but that’s how I felt at that time. If anything, it brought me back into sharp focus and gave me more determination.

We ate the earliest and highest breakfast I think any of us had ever eaten, then bound our crampons to our boots. Heading around the back of the hut, we roped up and joined the procession of disembodied head torches up and passed a huddle of tents.

We knew that the first several hundred metres to the crown of the Dome du Goutier would be a relentless plod. There was nothing to focus on bar the line of 100 souls lighting the route, our own boots trudging along and the stars. Far below Chamonix slept, drunks staggered home and children slept, unaware of the ghostly procession that faded and flickered high above them in the clouds.

I was thankful of the flat plateau we reached at the top of the dome. We stepped over a fracture in the crest and we were given a brief reprieve from the ascent. Shooting stars were being flicked across the night as I took a fleeting opportunity to glance up.

Again, I found myself vocalising my breathing. I didn’t care how unhealthy it seemed to Steve or Pascal, it gave me a focus and rythem. Whenever pain seared up my legs, I matched it with deep systematic breaths. Forcing more oxygen to where it was needed most. Pretty soon, all I consisted of was walking and breathing. This continued for an hour or so, I occasionally droned out a Budhist mantra that I had been taught many years ago, “Nah Meiow Yoh Hoh Rengay Keiow”. I’m not even sure what it means (or how to spell it), but it formed a deep repetitive resonance in my head, it took over and drove me on. After a while it moved from the conscience foreground of my mind to the subconscience arena of meditation. Whenever this cycle was broken I stumbled and tripped.

Jacob and Aaron filled my head whenever I needed more. I couldn’t force myself to think of them moving, they came only as still photographs in my head. The important thing was that they were there.

Pascal stopped at the Vallot Refuge, a small metal emergency shelter, just before the Bosses. He told us to drink while he tried to get on an awkward looking pair of waterproof trousers, under his harness, without taking it off. We stood there in the sub-zero air for 10 minutes at least, shivering and waiting. The hut was only 20 or so metres away, I couldn’t help thinking that it would have been a better place to stand.

The right side of my face had frozen and I couldn’t feel my nose. There were pins and needles shooting along my arms and up the backs if my legs. We walked on to the beginning of the Bosses. Nothing was said about the wind so we continued on. For the first time I dared to believe that we could do this. This was it. No more drunken fits of bravado in Glasgow bars. No more team talks in the Icicle apartment or around a resturant table. We were here and it was happening.

The Bosses sprawled and meandered over two knife edge ridges. A deep crevace cut and cracked it’s way alongside us. And the wind spat spindrift in our faces, instantly freezing to my beard. I pumped my fingers constantly on my walking pole, trying to regain circulation. Away to the east the sky had begin to bruise.

We began to climb steadily again. Curving along the trodden channel, created by a hundred success stories that morning.

At 05:30 we emerged on the summit of Mont Blanc.

The timing was perfect. The sun cracked the sky wide open revealing the continent of Europe. It must have been -15* but at that moment I didn’t care. A formal handshake with Pascal, followed by a hug from Steve and a couple of photos pretty much ended our visit to the top of Europe.

We were about to turn and leave when Chris, Jacques and Patrick topped the ridge. Perfect. I couldn’t believe that we were all in the summit at the same time. I was sure we were going to pass them somewhere lower down. So we got our ‘three on the summit’ photo that was looking highly improbable up to 15mins ago.

It was now bright enough to see without headtorches. I took one last glance over to the Matterhorn, away in the distance and managed a smile, then turned on my heel.

It was now fully light and we could see the route we had come up only about half an hour before, for the first time.
It turned, dipped and twisted over great undulations like a massive snowy fun ride. The exposed elements of the route became crystal clear. We had been walking in the darkness, just out of the headtorches range the ground dropped thousands of feet. Had we really been that close? Apparently so.

The snow was glowing gold as we cramponed along. Chamonix was basking in the early morning sun, the bakers would be setting out their stalls and the early workers would be breaking their fasts. To our right, the Aiguille du Midi pointed a triumphant finger skyward, ticking off another successful summit. Light streamed through the massive sundial, casting a 7 o’clock shadow over the clock that is Chamonix.

We paused a couple of times for photos, the sun had made us more relaxed. Even though we had only been through this way only an hour before, it was all new, shiny and white.

We reached the Goutier at around 08:30. The dinner room was setting out for breakfast, a new set of 100 plus souls had arrived. I felt like a veteran arriving back at HQ after a successful mission. I treated myself to a hot chocolate and a tangerine, the only food I had consumed since 1:30 that same morning. It tasted like a breakfast had never tasted before.