Aha! Another grandious self-proclaming title for a blog post! Last time I told you all that I am an ultra runner now, but this time I’ve become a mountaineer. I’m leveling up!
I’ll tell the full story of this adventure below, but I also wanted to share something new with you: a video compilation! I brought my old camcorder on this adventure and produced a 2 minute compilation of the footage. I had a lot of fun making this, I hope you’ll like it!
How it all started
This adventure started in February 2024 in the Netherlands. I was celebrating a family-weekend with my mum’s family when my older brother Zef sighed: ‘Oh man, I really want to go on this mountaineering trip with my climbing buddy, but there is a minimum requirement of three persons per mountain guide…’
Eager as I am for adventure I immediately replied: ‘No worries, I will join you guys!’
In hindsight, I probably should’ve asked him how much this trip was going to cost before agreeing to join. Because man-oh-man did it cost me an arm and a leg! And then we’re not even talking about all the gear I had to purchase for this trip…
Mountaineering shoes, carabiners, ropes, gaiters, belaying device, three different types of gloves and so much more! Half of the stuff I didn’t even know what it was if I’m honest. It definitely made me appreciate how cheap running is. You literally just need a pair of shoes (and even that is debatable with the rise of the ‘barefoot running’ trend).
Training for the adventure
Anyway, I had decided that I wouldn’t let my frugal Dutch ass stand in the way of a great adventure, so I quickly forgot about the fortune I had spent on this trip and focused solely on my physical preparedness.
The trip organisers had kindly supplied us with a gym routine to get everyone up to par fitness-wise. The focus was 100% on leg strength. I thought this was pretty awesome because I had just gotten into a bit of strength training for of my running related adventures, so this offered me the opportunity to go all in on that.
So on I went and got myself a gym membership. Lots of squats and calf-raises later, I felt strong enough to tackle some summits.
First two days: rock climbing & glacier lessons
After our arrival in La Grave (on the border of Les Écrins in the South of France) we started off our mountaineering week with a day of rock climbing in the valley. Here our two mountain guides (Xavi & Nacho) taught us all the right knots and techniques to maneuver/abseil/climb on rocky terrain.
I have to say I was pretty partial to learning the knots. There is something very satisfying about making a neat looking knot. The knots we learned were:
- Double eight knot (Flemish bend)
- Clove hitch
- Italian hitch
- The double Fisherman knot
- Prusik knot
- Machard knot
On the second day we went up Glacier de la Girose. Here we learned how to use our crampons and ice-axes in order to move safely over icy and snowy terrain. This was a lot of fun!
Three days into the wild
After those two days of instruction, we were ready to go on the real adventure: three days of full-on mountaineering!
Summiting Pic de la Grave
Our first challenge was reaching Pic de la Grave, a 3628m high peak that towered above Glacier de la Girose. It required us to cross the glacier, safely make it past a massive crevasse, and finally scrambled over the rocks to the summit (still wearing crampons!)
I have to admit I found it a bit scary to scramble over the rocks to the peak whilst still wearing the crampons on my feet. It didn’t feel very stable relying only on eight meager metal spikes to carry me over these rocks. When I reached the peak it was very windy, which I also didn’t particularly enjoy. I’m smiling in the picture above, but the observant viewer might also have noticed that I’m clinging onto my ice-axe somewhat desperately. Shortly after this picture was taken I planted my ass firmly on the mountain. That increased my level of comfort significantly: I was not going to accidentally be pushed off the mountain from this position.
Staying at Refuge de la Selle
After we went down the mountain on the other side, we arrived at Refuge de la Selle. They would host us for the next two nights. I had never stayed in a mountain hut like this before, so it was a very cool experience for me.
Due to a landslide that had happened earlier this year, the hut was completely cut off from the ‘real world’. This meant that the hut was dependent on helicopter cargo for all of their (food) supplies. Moreover, it also made the hut only accessible for people with mountaineering skills. There was no other way to get to this place than to climb over a mountain. As you can understand, this gave this hut and the valley it was situated in a magical aura. I felt very privileged that I was able to enter this area.
I strongly recall when the realisation of this privilege first hit. It happened when we were finishing our descent from Pic de la Grave. I could see the refuge in the distance – it was slowing increasing in size as we approached. Underneath my feet the snow gradually made way for rocks, and a bit later the rocks turned into gravel and grass. Between the patches of grass an occasional, brightly-coloured alpine flower popped up. These flowers looked so tiny and fragile, but somehow they managed to survive in this rugged terrain. It occurred to me that their beautiful and brightly-coloured petals were a celebration of their defiance and resilience.
Now you all might be thinking that the thin mountain air has gotten to my head and turned me into a sentimental old man – singing praise of flowers and all of that – but I can attest that it really was a beautiful moment.
Witnessing the fragile beauty of the alpine flowers after having just crossed a gnarly, aggressive-looking mountain ridge felt very rewarding. It was magical, as if we had just stepped through the wardrobe into Narnia. We had snuck passed the guards and were now welcomed into the realm of nature. This was a place where nature reigned and we were merely guests. Very special.
Poop intermezzo
Now a short intermezzo to talk about poop.
Some of you might be aware of the contentment I derive from my daily morning poops. They are peaceful and quiet, a delightful way to start each day with a clean slate. Oh, is that too much information? Well, that is up to me to decide, isn’t it? I’m the writer of this text after all, and I deem it crucial to share this information with you in order to preface the next picture.
A picture is often worth a thousand words, but I’d like to add a few more:
- the right toilet didn’t have a lock
- neither toilet had a light
- we shared these toilets with 50 people
As you can understand, the experience of my usual morning poops was not exactly ‘peaceful, quiet, and delightful’ anymore. But it fit the context of the hut very well, so fortunately I could see the charm of it as well 🙂
Summiting Tête Sud de la Replat
On the second day we woke up at 4:00 and started our expedition at 5:00. We set off this early because it would give the sun less of a chance to impact the snow quality. The earlier you leave, the better the ice and snow.
Personally I thought this ascent was so much easier than Pic de la Grave, which was probably just due to the fact that I could now rely on my experiences of the day before. Fortunately for me, we also didn’t have to do much scrambling on the rocks with our crampons, as this peak was mostly snow and ice. It might sound counterintuitive, but I preferred this over climbing on the rocks because the snow and ice were at least a bit moldable. Whilst debriefing after the ascent, I found out most other people preferred the rocks from the first day though, which just goes to show that everyone has their own climbing style and preferences.
Back to La Grave
On the final day, we simply made our way back to Glacier de la Girose by climbing up the Col de la Lauze. Even though this might have been the least interesting day (as we had already walked this route after we summited Pic de la Grave), I thoroughly enjoyed it.
The route consisted of a singlar, extremely steep, snowy hill, with gradients of up to 40%. Our guide Xavi headed our little group and prepared a nice staircase for the rest of us by stomping his crampons forcefully into the snow. It was definitely a tough walk up this hill, it took us a couple of hours. Just imagine doing Bulgarian split squats for a couple of hours straight and you know how we all felt on that hill.
But I liked it a lot! There is something very pleasant about repeating the same motion over and over again. It’s the same pleasure I used to derive from the repetitive, menial tasks of my early-teenage jobs: harvesting tomatoes in greenhouses & weeding trees at the tree nursery, that kind of stuff.
The difference here was that every step I made required some serious focus. It’s easy to slip and fall many meters down the slope. This actually happened to one of the guys in our group on the first day after we had summited Pic de la Grave. He slipped and fell down the steep slope, losing his ice-axe and tackling one of the guide along the way. The graveness of the situation dawned on us when we heard the guide seriously yelling at him. It was quite a traumatic experience for this person – he didn’t join us for the second day of climbing. It also left a bit of an impact on the rest of us, and I recall the guides yelling a bit more often than before: ‘Guys, focus!’
This intense focus – making every step a good step – combined with the required physical effort made it that I experienced the great sensation of euphoria at the end of each mountaineering day. There is something very pure about activities that require the body and mind to be fully in tune with each other. I enjoyed it very much. And that makes it fairly easy to answer the following question:
Will I do this again?
Hell yes! It was an awesome experience! I loved it so much. Not only did I enjoy learning how to tie knots, climb, and save myself on the mountain, but I also loved the feeling of brotherhood that you develop with complete strangers when you spend a week in the mountains together and rely on each other for safety. That might sound a bit cliché, but it really was a great experience! So yes, I will absolutely do this again.
(Even if it’s just to get my money’s worth out of all the material I purchased 😅)