Wednesday, July 16: Gouter
Ascent-Day 1
In honor of our unofficial
climbing partners, I'll say that I'm knackered. I'm in the hut, and I'm totally
beat. I was fine at the start of the hike, by the end I was really dragging.
I started out fine. For
breakfast, I got some sort of quiche-like thing at the bakery,
which I then brought back to
the apartment and ate.
I was ready on time, and I met
Chris at the bakery. They had different sandwiches than before, however, and
none caught my eye, so I ran back to my apartment to make a quick sandwich.
Then we drove to a nearby village and got in line for the tram. To my surprise,
Anine and Sam showed up literally right behind us. At the time, I still didn’t
realize that our guides worked for the same company, and that we were all on
essentially the same schedule. I thought it was just some sort of weird
coincidence.
We took the tram up, and then it
was a short walk down to the train. People started jogging, and Chris said,
“what are they hurrying for?” A moment later he said, “Come on, run!”
and started jogging down the path himself.
It turns out that the train was
at the station and was about to leave. The next one would be something like an
hour later.
So I proceeded to jog down the
path, in mountaineering boots, my backpack bouncing all over the place. We
boarded the train, and it left. In our car, all the seats were taken, so we
just all sat on the floor near the doors.
The cog railway ground uphill for
what seemed like a very short time, and then it was time to start walking. This
place was called Nid d’Aigle.
I made a beeline for the WC,
coincidentally getting in just after Anine and Sam. We had the right idea, however,
because when I left there was a long line waiting.
At the start, the hike reminded
me of Kili. It was
rock and dirt,
and they was a long line trudging up. Initially,
there was some jockeying for position because of different speeds. We passed
some slower groups, and some faster groups went on ahead.
We ground up, crossing more and
more snow. Eventually we got to the first/lower hut (Tete Rousse). We stopped
to have lunch. I was told that they frowned upon people bring food inside and
eating there (rather than buying the food inside), so I sat outside on a rock
and ate my sandwich. I found out later that the others happily ate their
sandwiches inside.
We were going up 800m further to
the second/higher hut (Gouter). For this we roped up and put on our crampons, etc.
In the picture above, the trail goes straight up the snow field, about
a third of the way from the right side. Then it traverses to the right
to the bottom of the Grand Couloir. It crosses the couloir and then
goes straight up one of the rocky ridges in the upper-right corner.
We started up a snow slope,
passing an
area where people were tenting.
This continued up until the slope
got steeper and rockier. That is, there were a number of crumbly rocky “ridges”
separated by snow.
At the start of this, we had to
cross a couloir (the Grand Couloir) that was known for rock fall. They had
strung a cable
across there that we clipped into with a carabiner. Then we
hurried across. Chris said that if he said to run, I should not pause or look
up or anything else, but run. Clipping into the cable was in case a rock hit
us, so we wouldn’t end up at the bottom of the snow slope among the rocks.
In the picture above, the rocky ridge we ascended is towards the left
of the picture. The Grand Couloir is barely visible to far left. Our
destination, the Gouter Hut, is on the ridge just to the left of the
solar flare.
After that, we had a big rock
scramble
up one of the ridges.
There were cables strung along in places. I was
using them, and one apparently sliced open two fingers. It didn't hurt, but I
looked down and saw that my fingers were red and dripping. So I had to tell
Chris to stop, and we did some bandaging. While he was getting his first aid
kit out, he had me stick my fingers in the snow, both to sort of clean them
off, but also to help stop the bleeding. The cuts weren’t deep, but some of
them bled like crazy.
Towards the end, I was really
dragging. I was fine when we stopped, but then when we started up, I was
quickly out of breath.
By the time we reached the ridge
and the hut, I was totally spent. I hope it was just low blood sugar. While the
guides checked us in, I just sat on a small stool and stared off into space.
I then had a bowl of herbal tea
(they seem to use bowls rather than mugs). I put a lot of sugar in. We talked
for a while, then Chris said we should take a nap before dinner. I did a little
writing, then lay down. I didn’t really sleep at all, however. In a few hours,
it was time for dinner. By the time I got out of bed, got my clothes on, and
got down for dinner, I was the last of the five of us to show up. As usual, I
was the slowest one eating at the table.
After dinner, I bought some
water, refilled my Camelbak and my Nalgene, drank the rest, got things ready
for the next morning, and then I hit the sack. Unfortunately, I didn’t sleep in
the slightest. A couple of times I got up to empty my bladder, to see if that
would help me sleep, but it didn’t. (Have I mentioned that I really hate lying
in bed not being able to sleep?) I was thinking of my Mount Rainier trip, when
they told us to sleep at Camp Muir. They went on to say that most of us would
probably sleep little to none, but our bodies would still be resting even if
our minds were not.