Prologue
I’d wanted to go ski touring for a couple of years and had booked this trip with the International School of Mountaineering (ISM) the previous year, but my little avalanche incident in Cogne meant that we had to cancel it, so I was really looking forward to getting to Leysin.
Glenys and I bought new touring boots and had spent a couple of days in St Anton “skinning” up the side of pistes to “break” the boots in. It all seemed good fun and the boots were OK, but my heels were lifting, so I stuck some padding onto my inner boot to try to stop it happening.
We went to Ishgl about a month earlier and spent two more days trying out our boots and getting used to touring skis. Unfortunately, both of us developed blisters on our heels. I ended up with a big blisters on each heel on the first day, which, even after putting protective tape on, gave me a lot of pain on the second day - it’s amazing how painful blisters can be. Glenys developed a blister on on her heel on the second day. When we got back home, I decided that the padding I’d put on to stop my heels lifting were causing the blisters and cut off it off.
We had a three week period to heal the blisters, but it was with more than a little apprehension that we set off for five days of Ski Mountaineering.
27 February 2010 Travel to Leysin, Switzerland
We flew to Geneva, walked to the train station and soon were sat on a train, which with Swiss precision set off exactly on time. We weren't too sure that we were on the correct train. Fortunately, the refreshment trolley came along and the guy said we were only one hour away from Aigle. We had a sandwich and chilled out, gazing at Lake Geneva with the fantastic views of the Alps beyond.
Once at Aigle, it was a short 30 metre walk to the cog railway train that goes up to Leysin. It’s a lovely journey, initially going through the high street of Aigle and then steeply up the side of the valley to Leysin itself. The train goes past vineyards with views over the town of Aigle, then gradually climbs to the snow level where the journey turns into a delight of snow, trees and mountain peaks.
When we arrived at the top station, it was a short, if slightly treacherous, walk down to the Grand Chalet Hotel where we collapsed for half an hour before deciding to walk down the steep roads to the Lefti Sport ski shop where we had pre-hired our touring skis.
Big mistake. It was four o'clock on a Saturday afternoon - just when everyone was bringing their skis back after a good day out. It was chaos. We were eventually given skis and took the time to make sure that the skins and ski crampons fitted the skis. My skins looked OK, but there was no clip to hold the skin onto the back of the ski - would it be OK? The skins also seemed to be cut a bit narrow. The optimum is to have the skins covering all of the base of the ski with just the steel edges showing. Glenys’s skins looked the opposite maybe not enough edges showing. We mentioned it, but were told it was OK, the skins had been specially cut to fit the skis. Only time will tell.
While I was trying to fit the skins onto my skis, I had taken off my jacket and jumper and was just wearing a skiing t-shirt. A French lady came up to me and started to ask me questions. A terse, “Je n'comprend pas”, in a Lancashire accent soon saw her off - she obviously thought that I worked in the ski shop. This happens to me a lot, mostly in supermarkets and DIY shops - I worry that I look like a shop assistant.
We walked back up to the Hotel Grand Chalet, which is high above the rest of the town, finished off unpacking and went down to the bar to have a beer before dinner. We had a really nice three course meal of Soup, “gambas” and some sort of cake. Collapsed into bed well before ten o’clock.
28 February 2010 Acclimatisation Day, Leysin
We were up at quarter past seven and went down for breakfast which was very nice. My high spirits were slightly dampened by the fact that it was raining.
We managed to drag ourselves out of the door at nine o'clock and walked down the icy road in the drizzle. We walked down to the top of the nursery slopes and were dismayed that the ski lifts didn't appear to be running. We skied down to the ski lift station to find out that all of the lifts were shut until at least eleven o'clock because of very high winds up at altitude.
Well, the only thing to do was to put the skins onto our skis and walk up the mountain. We set off in the drizzle up the side of the piste. The rain gradually turned into driving sleet but eventually we had to give up and shelter under a tree to wait for a squall to pass by.
We carried on up the run which turned into a red run and was quite steep. This gave us a chance to experiment with the “heel raisers”. This is a simple bit of plastic on the binding, which allows you to adjust the angle of your foot relative to the ski. The idea is that you keep your foot level even though the slope (and consequently, the ski) might be at 30 degrees. I’m not sure whether it is better to have my foot horizontal, heel down or heel up. Heel up makes you put too much weight on the toe (causing the ski to slip back on every step), but is easier on the thighs muscles. Whereas having the heel down puts more pressure on the heel and the skins stick better, but it pulls on the top muscle of your thigh. Horizontal is hard to achieve because the slope changes so much. In addition, every time you stop to change the heel lifters it wastes time, so you don’t want to do it too often. I guess that the best strategy is to look ahead, try to judge the slope and suffer most of the time.
We carried on up through the trees on a blue run and, after 90 minutes of trudging up hill, gradually emerged into the upper slopes. We stopped at the top of a run, removed the skins and skied back down to the bottom ski lift station in about fifteen minutes. There was no-one else on the mountain, which was fantastic.
When we arrived back at the bottom of the ski lift, it was apparent that only one chair lift was running. Most people were getting back onto the ski bus and giving up. Only a few hardy souls were bothering to go up the chair lift (probably because they had season tickets.) Glenys enquired about buying a lift pass and the girl looked at us like we were mad, “But there’s only one chair lift running”. Glenys persevered and bought two tickets for £16 each - bargain.
We skied until lunch time and then went down to Leysin and had lunch in a small hotel next to the ski lift station - nice warming soup and a plate of dodgy looking cured meat and salami. We spent the afternoon skiing on the single chairlift, which was made better by our discovery of a black run which was a bit more testing than the other red and blue runs. The skis that I have hired are Rossignol Bandit Legends which are very light Touring skis and are very soft, which doesn't seem to suit my aggressive skiing style. If I lean back too much, the back end of the skis seem to break-away and I go down like a sack of potatoes. I need to be a bit more delicate.
There were quite a few groups of people skinning up the side of the pistes. We noticed that most of them seemed to be very fit, young men. This didn't bode well - the last thing that we wanted was young, fit men on our course...
We arrived back at the bottom by about four o'clock and put our skins back on to walk back up closer to the hotel - a good day's skiing.
Back in the hotel, we inspected our heels and, while I was OK, Glenys’s old blister was a bit sensitive. We’ll see tomorrow.
We went down to the bar at quarter to seven to meet the guide from ISM. We bought a couple of “Grand Bierres” and sat down. Looking around the hotel bar, it soon became apparent that there were three very fit looking young men chatting in English. Oh God!
I wandered over and asked them if they were with ISM. Yes. Oh God... We joined them and made polite conversation. They seemed a bit perturbed that an “older” couple were on the trip.
The ISM Guide, Terry Ralph arrived. Glenys had already done a week long course with him about three years earlier and we had met him on the path up to the Moiry Hut a couple of years ago, so he knew us and I think that gave us a little bit of credibility back in the eyes of the others.
Terry told us what were going to do for the week - tomorrow would be avalanche rescue training followed by a short tour of a peak above Leysin, Tuesday would be a 900 metre ascent of a peak nearby and the last three days would be touring based at at hut. Another guide, Steve Monks, will be joining us on Tuesday, which is great news. I know Steve very well having spent a couple of weeks with him, including climbing the Matterhorn.
We were each handed a shovel, a collapsible 2 metre long probe and a transceiver. This equipment allows us to find a person buried by an avalanche and then dig them out. Terry also handed out mountain mix (dried fruit and nuts) and some chocolate bars. Apparently, we will be given sandwiches for lunch tomorrow. Terry told us to meet him at quarter past eight and left, so we all took our booty back to our rooms then went down for dinner.
The hotel had reserved a big table for the six of us. Mark and Mike are two barristers and long time friends. They are in their late thirties. It sounds like Mark does about four skiing trips per year and Mike is being dragged along on this one. They are like a married couple, loud, and say lots of half sentences during which they dissolve into raucous laughter. Mark went to Canon Slade, which is my old grammar school.
Silvano is part Italian, works in London and seems to be a fairly quiet chap. The other member of our party is Omar, who looks very fit - he didn't say much and left the table early. Both Silvano and Omar are in their mid thirties.
We went to bed a little nervous about keeping up with our young, fit group.
1 March 2010 Tour de Famelon (2138m)
We got up at quarter to seven and went down for breakfast. Mark, Mike and Omar were at breakfast with us, but Silvano didn't show up until eight o'clock when we were all leaving. Glenys and I had already packed our rucksacks (about three times), so we were down in reception ready to leave as planned at quarter past eight.
The others arrived haphazardly over the next fifteen minutes, with their kit in various states of array. Silvano told Terry that he had already lost his shovel. Terry was not at all pleased and just told Silvano that he had to find it. Eventually, Silvano gave up and went out for the day without his shovel. (It magically appeared in his room the next day, so we guess that he had left it in the bar and the cleaner had locked it away somewhere.)
We finally walked down the road to the top of the nursery slope and skied down to the ski lift station. Terry went and bought the ski passes for the day and we went up in the tele-cabine. After a bit of a briefing about the current Avalanche Forecast, we skied down to the top of the Tete d’Ai ski lift, where there is an avalanche rescue training area.
We spent a couple of hours playing in knee deep powder, burying transceivers in “transmit” mode to act as avalanche victims, and then trying to locate them with our transceivers in “receive” mode. It’s interesting how the system works. The receiver has two or three aerials arranged at ninety degrees to each other and these pick up the signal along what is called “flux” lines which radiate out from the transmitter like the flux lines on a magnet. This means that when following the signal to the victim, you actually follow a curved path to them. However, even with this technical problem, it is fairly easy to find the victim.
Once the victim has been roughly located, the rest of the team push the probes into the snow to try to physically find the victim. Apparently when you find a victim with your probe, you should leave it jabbed into the victim’s body because it reassures them. I guess that it would be a bit worrying being buried, unable to breathe properly and wondering if any one will find you. Imagine the relief when a probe jabs into you and the despair if the probe was then removed..
Once the victim is located, the team then start digging down hill of the victim’s marked position, with one person digging and the others removing the dug-out snow.
We had an early lunch, then skied across to the top of Les Fers chairlift to prepare to go up to the top of the Tour de Famelon (2138m) - an ascent of 460m.
The avalanche risk for the day was at Level 3 which is “Considerable”. The official explanation of this level is:
The snow pack is moderately to weakly bonded on many steep slopes. Avalanches can be triggered even through low additional loads mainly on steep slopes indicated in the bulletin. In certain conditions, some medium and occasionally large natural avalanches are possible. Isolated exposed sectors are endangered and some safety measures recommended in those places. Partially unfavourable conditions. Experience in the assessment of avalanche danger is required. Steep slopes of indicated aspects and altitude zones should be avoided if possible.
The risk of avalanche was very much in our minds as we looked up at the slopes directly above where we were standing - where there was the remnants of a big avalanche, which was triggered yesterday.
We put on our skins and then started on our way up the mountain. Terry led us off to the side of the slope above us through some trees to avoid the potentially unstable slopes. We were then presented with a pristine slope beckoning us up the mountain.
The sun was beating down and I stripped down to a single base layer, but was still sweating profusely with the heat of the sun and the effort of climbing. I had sweat running down my face, fogging up my sunglasses and carrying suntan lotion into my eyes, which doesn't half sting.
After about half an hour, we started up a steep section and I noticed that I kept slipping back as I weighted my ski. I persevered up a nasty steep traverse and had another 15 minutes of struggling in the deep snow before I thought of checking the bottom of my skis. I took one off and found 40 cm of hard packed snow stuck to the bottom of my skins. No wonder that I was struggling. Glenys and Silvano stopped where I was and we found that Glenys’s skis had the same problem. We scraped the snow off with our ski poles and continued up trying to catch up with the others.
Just before the peak of the Tour de Famelon, there is a very steep section and Terry’s line was at about 30 degrees. Both Glenys and I were struggling because our skis had balled up again. I took a slightly shallower line and we managed to get up. Terry told us that balling up is a known problem with pure synthetic skins. The better and more expensive skins have mohair in them which helps prevent this problem. The way to prevent the problem is to wax the skins, which we will do tomorrow. Everyone else in the party has Mohair skins - great!
We all walked up to the top of the peak which was pretty icy and steep, so we had to kick steps and use a fixed chain to get up. There was a great view of Leysin from the top.
The ski down was difficult. We walked down to our skis and then, for the first section, we had to ski down the very steep slope one at a time - there's nothing worse than every one watching you. Terry decided to ski down the other side of the mountain to Solepraz. Initially it was icy with a steep traverse, but once we were in the valley the snow turned into something resembling thick porridge with a crust about 20 centimetres down.
I had a confidence crisis. I had to use lots of effort to turn and then as I weighted the ski, I broke through the crust and disappeared into the deep snow. It’s amazing how exhausting it is to keep having to pick yourself up out of deep snow. Within 20 minutes, I was exhausted which made everything even harder. The only consolation was that everyone else (except Terry) was struggling as well.
Once at the bottom of the slope, we then had a pretty exhausting time snow-ploughing down a foot path trying to slow down, which really make the thighs burn. We wended our weary way back to Leysin on the piste and arrived back at the hotel at about half past four.
No rest for the wicked, Terry wanted us to meet at six o'clock so we just had time to have a shower and hang up our damp clothes before going to the bar for an Avalanche Awareness lecture, which was very good. We had dinner with the others and collapsed into bed at nine o'clock We found out that Omar runs in hundred mile ultra-marathons. (Please God, don’t let him go at the front...)
2 March 2010 Pic Chaussy (2351m)
We managed to organise ourselves and set off at half past eight. Steve Monks joined us and it was great to catch up with him again. I'm slightly surprised to see Steve, he normally comes over to the Alps in the summer and spends winter in Australia. He's a self-declared climbing specialist and told us that he hasn't skied for 15 years. His partner (Zoe) has taken a full-time job in Europe, so he's decided to spend a couple of years in Europe with her - hence needing to brush up on his winter skills.
We drove around to Les Mosses and parked at the bottom of a disused ski drag. We sorted out our gear and Glenys and I waxed our skins. It was lightly snowing when we set off up the old piste next to the drag lift. The forecast was for it to improve, but the Avalanche Risk remained at 3.
At the top, we went across a very flat meadow and then up a wide path leading to a small mountain restaurant next to a frozen lake. Unfortunately, the restaurant was closed for the winter, so we had a quick chew of our sandwich in the biting cold before setting off up the mountain. The pace was OK, if a little remorseless - these guides just don’t stop. There was a lot more avalanche debris on the south facing slopes showing signs of the current instability.
Eventually, we reached a col, where, after a short rest and a “mountain mix” refuel, we turned left and set off up a towards the summit. Terry skinned up a slope which had large cornices overhanging on the right and huge cornices above our route. His only comment was: Don’t go too far to the right and pray that the cornices above us don’t decide to drop off...
We continued up towards the cornices in fairly deep powder, which looked good for the descent. We arrived at a steep slope defended by an other overhanging cornice with a worrying amount of big blocks of hard snow that had fallen from it. Terry continued up a zig-zag path and eventually broke through the lip of the cornice.
Mike had a bit of a problem when he tried to get over the lip. He leaned into the slope instead of standing upright. It’s counter-intuitive because you want to lean into the ground, but that actually makes it worse because your skis start slipping away. He ended up on his side scrabbling away trying to get up over the lip obviously hyperventilating about falling into the abyss. After that, we all approached the lip with some trepidation.
Once over the lip, we were faced with a very icy, wind-swept slope. The route continued up at about 20 degrees, but there was a huge drop off to the left which quickly turned into a 45 degree slope, which descended to the valley floor a kilometre below. Fortunately, Terry had made us put on our ski crampons at the Col, which helped a lot.
The main problem with ski crampons is that, for them to be effective, you have to set the “heel lifters”, so that your feet are flat with the ski. This allows the ski crampon spikes to really stick into the ice/snow. Unfortunately, this also means that the tops of your already tired thighs really start to burn - imagine walking up and down stairs for two hours and then, in a couching position, walking up the stairs for ten minutes. Combined with the fear of the icy slopes and a huge drop on our left, it was a bit stressful.
It was even more stressful for Mike - he didn't have any ski crampons because the ski shop had given him the wrong size (Note to Self: Remember to CHECK all my ski gear before I go onto a mountain.) He had to keep zig-zagging up the scary slope with the huge drop to the left and the lethal overhanging cornices to the right.
We all made it to the top. Is the fear greater than the actual danger? There's a great view of Leysin from the top. We lurked around for ten minutes, having a “mountain mix” refuel and set off down.
I was fairly apprehensive before we set off, but if one ignored the kilometre drop off to the right, it was a very simple (if icy) traverse down to the cornice lip. There was a bit of faffing past the cornice and then onto a steep powder slope. Unfortunately, it was very over-cast and the light was very “flat” which meant that we couldn't see the angle of the slope or even if there was a huge drop in front of us. We skied cautiously down the gloriously deep powder.
Terry stopped at the top of a couloir, which initially looked like it dropped away vertically, but wasn't too bad once we’d gone over the initial lip. The slope was very variable with some powder patches, turning into a very difficult section with snow over avalanche debris making it very bumpy.
We trudged back across the meadow and skied down the old piste back to the car. We went into a bar and had a well deserved drink and cake. The pace was better than yesterday and the snow conditions were much better. We did 900 metres ascent in about three hours and it took us 30 minutes to get back down.
We drove back to the Grand Chalet hotel and spend 20 minutes sorting out crampons for our boots before staggering to our room for a shower. Terry gave us another briefing at six o'clock, telling us that we were going to the Lammerenhutte for three days and what equipment we should take. We had dinner and were in bed by nine o'clock.
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.