Mont Blanc Blues

Its been over a week since we climbed Mont Blanc and I cant get the mountain nor the Alps out of my head. The first few days were the hardest, trying to readjust back to domestic, everyday life. All day Tuesday I looked out of my window and half expected to see Mont Blanc glaring down on me as she had done in Chamonix. What’s more I don’t have a project to sink my teeth into anymore, its left a hole, one that’s already starting to fill with precursor musings over attempting the Eiger. 

I have also been overwhelmed with the amount of interest in this blog, over 1000 hits to date. Especially since I put the pictures up. I have to admit that I have become a bit obsessed with it. It is the last remnants of the Mont Blanc dream and I am finding it hard to let go. So, I use this as an extension to occupy my mind. I don’t think this would have been the case if I hadn’t had another week off directly after our trip. The blog has been an experiment in itself; I felt like a bit of a charlatan asking my students to reflect in this way without actually doing it myself. Now I have and I fully understand the reflective properties of such a project. The stages of writing this have given me a clearer path in which to bring it to my teaching and the iPod Touch has been central to its evolution. I could tinker with it for months to come, but I need to find a conclusion. Hopefully this should serve as one. One of the main considerations is the time involved in constructing a reflective journal. I cannot escape the fact that it is time consuming and requires a degree of daily discipline. How we time manage this is core to it being successful. Strategies in this area need developed and a way of adding the demands of writing a journal of good quality along with the considerable paperwork that a Stage Manager already has to contend with.

Well, that’s blogging… what about the expedition itself? 

What was it that made the experience unique? It wasn’t simply because the summit was the highest, though that did make everything a lot more focussed and driven. Extra effort had to be put in, mainly due to altitude. Which I undoubtedly suffered from. I felt I was fit enough but still struggled. That’s the second time I have been at altitude and the second time I have suffered by its hand. Am I particularly susceptible to its affects? If so, was I risking too much by pushing on, when I should have stopped? It was only by sheer will power that I pushed onto the summit and it could have all gone horribly wrong. I may have risked my chance of reaching the summit, not to mention Steve’s and my own long term health. I guess I was just lucky.

At no point did I feel any real tangible fear for my well being, even in the light of what happened on K2 or the young 18 year old who died the day before we went rock climbing in Chamonix. These tragedies should have phased me by some measure, they didn’t. If anything they have spurred me on.

Can I now call myself a mountaineer? A title that I have long wanted to consolidate. I know how to be one, but is that enough to actually migrate from hill walking in Scotland to climbing the Eiger? I guess that’s for mountaineers to judge. Patrick, Matt and Andy all accomplished the same outcome as Steve, Chris and myself without any prior experience. Was their success greater than ours? It must have felt much more satisfying than our own. They had a much steeper learning curve to overcome and standing on that summit must have tasted sweet, the question I suppose is how much more so and how do you measure it?

Another question that arose was triggered by a comment Steve made when scrambling back down to the Tete Rousse Hut, he stated that we didn’t really need guides for the route. I have to strongly disagree with this and I’m sure that on reflection he will also do so. The very fact that it was said retrospectively and the trip ran so smoothly is probably an indicator that the statement was said in haste and we did indeed require guides. 

If nothing else, the guides brought us security if required. It was our first high altitude foray and we hadn’t taken time to learn French. Small logistics such as organising breakfast and picking up weather updates from other guides in the Goutier Hut, all went towards the bigger success of the trip. Knowing the pace to set and the time intervals involved were also crucial to the journey. We hit the summit bang on time and though a great deal cold be put down to luck, every little bit of information and experience helped. Knowing to get down to the Grande Couloire early to avoid an avalanche of rock fall was a great indicator of Pascal’s knowledge. He got us over the couloire, both ways, with only the briefest indication that this area was potentially lethal. It was no coincidence that we were crossing it at the times we did without incident. Chris and Patrick experienced stone fall on both crossings because of the sheer weight of traffic above them, perhaps caused by Steve and I on the ascent. 

In the Goutier it took Jacques a good half hour of negotiations to get Matt and Andy a bunk for the night. I cant imagine how we would have dealt with that, perhaps by being British and resolute? I doubt it. I also got the distinct impression that both Pascal and Jacques were not only well known, but respected by both the hut staff and other guides. Ervin was new to the area and probably still needed to build up that respect, even with Everest on his CV.

There were many details that went into build the big picture and we found ourselves discovering them after Steve’s statement. “That’s what you pay a guide for”, became a fairly regular statement. At least someone raised the issue.

I regret not taking a photo of all 6 of us on the summit, Steve and I had already been there for 15 minutes or so and it was getting seriously cold by the time the others arrived. We were actually just about to descend when Chris’s cheery face appeared. It was a great advertising opportunity for Icicle and one we probably should have addressed, I just didn’t think of it at the time. 

The biggest disappointing factor was the fact that we were in such a mixed group. Don’t get me wrong, they were all great guys, all had their own agenda’s and expectations of the trip. I had the idea that the training would be much more technical. I wanted to do ‘actual’ crevasse rescue and more rope work. If I am to attempt Cotopaxi, unguided in the future then I will need much more than a few chats over coffee with Kingsley. My expectations were perhaps too high and I didn’t speak up enough about the itinerary beforehand. I now feel that I need to go on another specialised course or suchlike. This is by no means a criticism of Icicle. They tailored the course to the least experienced of the group and could do little else. Odd numbers also didn’t help.

Initially, when I put those first feet on the summit I was relieved that I hadn’t let down the team, especially Steve who was breathing down my neck for most of the route. He’s a big lad and his presence was pretty intimidating, which I have no doubt helped to me drive along. It wasn’t until I got back to Scotland that I started to see what I had done for myself. I had stood on the roof of Europe and apart from Steve and Chris, no-one else I knew had done so. My neighbours didn’t understand the achievement, so said little to me about it, but why would they? Unless you actually attempt something similar then you have no idea. It’s an exclusive game, this mountaineering lark and the higher you go… the more exclusive it becomes. In a way, I prefer them not knowing, its more personal that way. 

Mountains give you drive and focus, there can be no doubting that. Hopefully I can now transfer this to life itself and the inevitability of work on Monday. The real trick is how you use and merge these experiences with the rest of your life.

And finally…

My warmest congratulations to those who know what it is like…

To Matt and Andy, who’s good humour and stoutness got them to the top. Well done guys (Good luck with your next summit Matt e.g. marriage).

To Patrick, who we all doubted, but found something at the Goutier Hut that dragged him to the top. Two things Patrick mate; waterproofs are a good idea at 5km above sea level and factor 200 sun screen makes you look much worse than you actually are! – Amazingly well done!

To Chris, who was on a knives edge for a good bit of the trip but always had the tenacity and stubbornness to find a way up, regardless of the obstacles (usually with a fag hanging out of the corner of your mouth and sponsored by RedBull).

To Steve, the most ancient of friends and the hardest to write about. Some sort of karma thing happened when we were roped together, it wasn’t just pot luck or who was next to who… I’m pretty sure.