3 March 2010 Roter Totz Col (2829m)
We met up at quarter past eight, loaded up the cars and drove to Leukerbad, which took one and half hours.
After sorting out our kit, we took small cable car up to Gemmipass, where we skinned up and set off for the Lammerenhutte. This is a very tedious walk across an incredibly flat river bed. The synthetic skins that Glenys and I have got don’t glide as well as the mohair skins, so we were having to walk down any slight hills while the others were able to ski down - very frustrating.
After an hour of trudging, we arrived at a steep slope below the hut and Terry zig-zagged his way up very close to a cliff. This was more interesting and a bit delicate in places. We then traversed around a fairly icy slope in quite a cold wind and up to the hut, which was a welcome sight.
We were allocated a room in the hut and dumped some of our heavy gear before having a drink and a cake. Terry meanwhile had decided that we would go up to a col above the hut. It was very hard to drag ourselves from the nice warm hut out to the cold.
The snow was about a foot deep and it was very pleasant for the first twenty minutes until we got out of the shelter onto the windswept slopes leading up to the col. The wind was very strong and cold as we battled up the last icy section to the top of the col. We didn't hang about - we quickly took off our skins and then started back down.
The powder was fantastic, but again, the visibility was very poor, so I crashed a few times. We quickly got back down to the hut where Terry decided that he would dig a snow hole to show us how to evaluate the stability of a snow slope. It was interesting to look at the hardness of the various layers of snow that made up the full depth of the snow. The idea is to look for soft layers in the snow which will allow the harder layers above to slide.
We retired back to the hut and had an excellent four course dinner - soup, salad, stew and cake. In bed at nine o'clock.
4 March 2010 Mittlerer Gipfel (3243m)
Up at quarter to seven again. I had a horrible night’s sleep and kept waking up. The duvet was very warm and we didn't have the window open enough. To make things worse, the mattresses are very narrow and I had Glenys gently snoring on one side and Omar doing heavy breathing on my other side. As usual, my legs were sticking together because of the dried sweat.
The breakfast was really good - cereal, bread, jam, cheese and hot chocolate. Much better than the dried bread we usually get in other huts.
We were all ready at eight o'clock after the normal trauma of packing of rucksacks - what should I take? My skins seemed to be quite dry which was a relief. We skied the first 400 metres, but it was very flat and a bit of a struggle, so Terry decided to stop and put on our skins.
Omar got his skins out and discovered that he’d picked up the wrong ones! Everyone quickly checked that they had the right skins, which we all had. Omar looked slightly panicky. After a bit of discussion, it turned out that Mark’s bindings would fit Omar’s boots, so he stepped into Mark’s skis and set off to the hut to try to find his skins. Meanwhile every one made sure that they had all their other gear...
Omar returned about fifteen minutes later. Someone in another group had realised that he had the wrong skins, so they were waiting for him to go back to the hut. It was really lucky that we hadn't skied any further away from the hut.
With the skin trauma over, we set off. The terrain was up and down, which was a nuisance for Glenys and me. We were having to walk down the slopes because of our synthetic skins, while the others glided past us with their Mohair skins. After 15 minutes of burning thighs, we reached the start of the ascent and soon got into a nice smooth rhythm, but I felt that the pace was still too fast for me.
Terry wanted everyone to take turns leading the group, to gain experience of choosing the most efficient route. Omar immediately stepped forward, which made my heart drop - I felt tired enough already without an Ultra Marathon Man taking the lead. In fact his pace was very good and I felt OK for a change.
After a while, Terry stopped the group and asked me if I would take the lead. I politely declined, “Not really, I'm knackered already.” Terry gave the lead to Silvano. He took off like a demented man. Terry gave him some advice on the best track, but eventually Silvano was too far in front to hear, so Terry took us on a more efficient route leaving Silvano to go off on his own way. He soon got the hint and rejoined us.
The rest of the climb was a blur; pretty remorseless with four false summits making it a little demoralising. At least the sun was shining as we climbed and the snow looked good, so we were looking forward to a nice ski back down.
However, the Mountain Gods decided that we’d had enough sun and sent clouds rolling in from the East. By the time we’d reached the summit it was in thick mist, but at least the wind was fairly light. We stopped for fifteen minutes, had a rest, a chocolate bar and walked the 20 metres to the summit. It had been 750 metres of ascent.
The ski down the top section was beautiful powder, but the poor visibility made it very difficult. As usual, I had a few moments of bouncing effortlessly through the powder, then leaned back or too much forwards and crumped in.
We stopped off above a small cliff where we spent an hour doing crevasses rescue practice. Terry showed us how to build a belay in the snow which consisted of burying a pair of skis at ninety degrees to the direction of the victim. He then rigged up a couple of pulley systems whereupon Mark and Mike each volunteered to be lowered over the small cliff and be hoisted up.
We then skied back to the hut and had a huge rosti. Terry then organised a session for rope work to show us exactly how he had rigged up the various pulley systems for the crevasse rescue. We all had an opportunity to have a go. My preferred method is to simply lower a Ropeman and a carabiner down to the victim and then use the ratching mechanism on the Ropeman to hoist the person up. Clean and simple.
We had another nice dinner and collapsed into bed at nine o'clock.
5 March 2010 Daubenhorn (2942m)
Up at seven o'clock again - I'm looking forward to a lie-in. I had a better night’s sleep, but woke up quite early .
I faffed about and was the last to get ready and leave the bedroom. It was nice to be in the room alone after all the constant contact with people. It was very cold outside, forecast to be minus 20 degrees Celcius at 3,000m, so I put on all of my clothes including my down body warmer.
We skied down the couloir next to hut, which has really nice powder, again I struggled a bit. Terry lost his way and couldn't see how to get down. He was going to cut tracks across a steep slope with his ice axe, but Steve convinced him to go to the right, which was a good decision as the route was nice powder and not too steep. I did a spectacular front somersault when I hit a depression which shot me out of my bindings - all my trampolining experience kicked in and I landed on my backside without injuring myself.
We set off up the slope, which was very hard work on my tired old legs. As we went higher, the wind picked up making it even colder. After about half an hour, I slipped backwards on a steep section and the skin came off my right ski. Steve and Terry helped me sort it out by first cleaning the snow off the glue side and putting the skins inside their jackets to warm them up. They explained that the glue doesn't stick as well when it is very cold. In addition, my skins didn't have any clips on the back end to help hold the skin on the ski. They reattached the skins and fixed the back end in place with a wrap of the ubiquitous duct tape.
As we approached the summit, we had to traverse across a very steep, icy slope. I was very careful to make sure that I stamped my feet to make a firm ledge beneath my ski on every step because my skins don’t reach the edges of my skis. I MUST make sure that my skins are mohair and fit very well next time.
The wind was howling as we sheltered next to a small rock face near the summit. With the wind chill, Terry reckoned that the temperature was minus 30 degrees. We took off our skis and attached crampons to our boots. My hands were starting to get very cold, so I changed to my big warm mitts.
Terry and Steve roped us up in two groups of three and we walked out into the howling wind and snow up to the summit about 50 metres away. Half way up, Terry stopped his group and was very concerned that Mike’s nose was getting frostbitten - it had gone completely white. He spent a minute covering Mike’s face with his gloved hand to get some warmth back into his nose.
Meanwhile, we were all trying to cover as much of our faces as possible. Terry looked at Glenys’s nose and got her to cover it up with her neck scarf. We persevered up to the summit, but couldn't see much because of the snow. We didn't hang about, and just turned around and escaped back to our skis. It was a shame that the weather was so bad because I got odd glimpses of the spectacular view with a huge cliff dropping down to the Leukerbad valley below.
Once we got our skis back on, we had few brief gaps in the weather and some sections of sun. The ski back down was great, but cold.
When we got back down to the river valley, we had a remorseless walk across the river valley back to the cable car - this took an hour. We staggered into the lift station, dumped our skis and went to the restaurant and had a well deserved Spaghetti Bolognese and chips.
We caught the cable car back down to Leukerbad and loaded up the cars. We said goodbye to Omar who was going to be dropped off in Martigny on the way back. We stopped off at the ski rental shop to drop off our skis and then back to the hotel and checked in again. This time they gave us a room with a bath - which was great.
Terry came back at seven o'clock to pick up our shovels, probes and transceivers. We had a chat about the week and then he disappeared leaving us to go to have dinner. Steve had said that he would meet us in a bar at nine o'clock, but after dinner, we all decided that we were too knackered to go out and crashed out in bed at half past nine.
Eplilog
The next day, we travelled back to Geneva with Mark and Mike. Silvano was driving back to Italy, but kindly dropped Glenys and our gear off at the station. The trip home was OK and we arrived back at home at seven o'clock in the evening.
A couple of days later, both Glenys and I were showing signs of “Frost Nip” - Glenys had a streak on her left cheek and the end of my nose went black and then peeled.
It was an interesting week, but incredibly tiring. Both Glenys and I have decided that it is too much like hard work. The thought of doing 5 full days of ski-touring on something like the Haute Route fills us with dread. We’ll stick to the odd day outing when we go skiing.
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