A week in the Alps

Last week I abandoned Kerstin and Yana and headed into the mountains for a weeks climbing. Organised during a drunken gathering about a year ago, the moment had finally arrived and we (three kiwis and a dutchy) were about to try and climb Mont Blanc (4808m), the highest mountain in Europe.

Everyone flew down to Munich (From Edinburgh, London and Lilystadt (Holland)) and in the campervan we did it in fine road-trip style to Chamonix via various places in Switzerland.

I have just received this picture in the post from the Swiss police taken from a security camera at a building site.










Susten pass - our first bit of tramping. After camping Friday night near the German/austrian border, we headed to Susten pass in Switzerland as a scenic way of travelling to the famous Jungfrau, Monch and Eiger mountains near Interlaken. Unfortuantely the road was closed, but we ignored that and drove up anyway to do some tramping. You can see one of the slips in the photo. We later found out why they hadn't bothered clearing it and reopening the road, when a second one came down later that day. We camped at 1900m and did a walk up to nearly 3000m (trying to aclimatise a little for the climbing ahead).





Nearing the top, we had a nice view of a neighbouring mountain and the slackers who took the lift to the top of it...










Because many of the huts in the Jungfrau region were still closed, we just did a few day walks in the area.










To get to Chamonix we blindly followed our Tomtom which decided the Kandersteg-Goppenstein train was the quickest way there. Fortunately it only cost CH20, so was actually a nice relaxing way to travel.







We had been carefully following the weather forecast in the Chamonix region the whole time (which changed every 5 minutes), and in the end we decided to head up and try our luck - we would be able to get weather updates at the huts. Because it was still quite early in the season, the train and gondola were closed, which meant I was able to persuade the others that we should do it like real men. On Wednesday, we parked in Les Houches (1100m) and walked up to the first hut - Tete Rousse (3200m).

At Tete Rousse we discovered that the Gouter hut (3817m), while not officially open (unlike what the info center had said), would allow people to stay anyway (unlike what the guide center had said), so we headed up the 600m so summit day would be easier and we could further acclimatise. Slightly higher than mt Cook in NZ, this is where we really started to notice the altitude - most of us had cracking headaches for most of the day. According to the GPS unit we had, air pressure was just over 60% that at sea level (at 4000m).

On arrival at the Gouter hut we had plenty of time so went for a walk up to just over 4000m towards Mont Blanc because we knew we would be doing the first section in darkness. This photo is looking east to Chamonix (valley) and Aiguille du Midi etc (mountains on right).






The Friday morning forecast was looking good, so we woke up at 2am ready to make a summit attempt, but unfortuately it was snowing and blowing, so after another false start at 4am, we finally got up at 5am and although we had given up on the peak, went for another walk. This photo on sunrise is roughly the same as the previous. We turned back on spotting the first cravasse and therefore never saw the peak (we had been planning to follow in everyone else's footsteps, and had therefore not carried a rope up). We then walked the 3000m back down to the campervan.

On Saturday morning we dropped Dan off and started on the long drive back to Munich. We stayed Saturday night in Rorschach, Switzerland right beside Bodensee/Lake Constance and hired a boat on the Sunday morning for a few hours before continuing on the way home.