Mont Blanc 2002-08-(16-18)
A word of
advice:
For
photos please have a look at my
http://wmjokra.home.cern.ch/wmjokra/montblanc/montblanc2/index.html
You can also find it here:
http://www.pbase.com/johan_karlsson/montblanc2002
"Thursday 15/8-02"
Me and Thomas Nederman
decided to go to a top called Tacul during the upcoming weekend due to the good
forecast. Tacul is located in
I borrowed crampons, ice axe,
harness and some carbines from a friend to be able to perform the task. A tent,
sleeping bag, shoes and rope I had myself.
We studied the map over the area and
we watched a DVD about
"Friday 16/8-02"
"The road to
We had planned to leave work a bit
earlier than usual but that plan failed, as Thomas got a last minute call.
Luckily that didn't took too long so we were on our way towards
We had to be in time to take the
last cable car up to Aiguille du Midi (3845m) and we had to drive quite fast to
be able to make it. After we parked the car and bought the ticket we had about
three minutes to catch the last cable car, which we managed exactly in time. We
just walked straight into the cable car and then they closed the doors.
This reminded me of last time I
climbed
In the cable car we were all alone
but we met a lot of tourists going down to
"Aiguille
du Midi"
Once when we arrived to Aiguille du
Midi we sorted out our gear and got dressed from normal clothes, shorts and
T-shirt, to more alpine clothing. We attached ourselves with the rope and we
put on the crampons. Crampons are a necessity to be able to walk on the glacier
and they proved to be my best friend (together with the ice axe), actually I
never took them off during the whole weekend.
After climbing over the fence, which
is there to stop tourists from falling down the ravine, we sat a course down
towards the glacier and the valley blanche. After been
walking on the small path on the ridge from Aiguille du Midi we reached the
valley and the place we had planned to put up the tent for the weekend. This
walk took us about 30 minutes.
"Refuge Cosmique"
We chose a spot for the tent close
to the Cosmique hut. This is a necessity for all the climbers that want to do
all the three summits Tacul, Maudit, and
After we put up the tent we went to
the Cosmique in the hope of having something to eat and to get changed for the
night. There we managed to get a superb three-course meal, which was excellent.
This was much better than the refuge food I had experienced before. The meal
and the atmosphere in the hut made us feel quite good about ourselves and we
were very positive about our upcoming hike.
The Cosmique
hut was quite busy but not completely full, as it often is for instance in the Gouter hut. They even have normal toilets and not just a
hole in the floor.
After watching the sunset we got
changed for the night.
Before we paid for the meal we met this girl who throw up in the staircase and in the toilet...
We asked her friend if she had "Plat de jour", which we ate, but
luckily for us the poor woman was suffering from the altitude. After that we
went down to our tent. Outside it had already become dark; luckily I was clever
enough to bring my headlamp so finding the tent wasn't any problem.
"Saturday 17/8-02"
"The night"
This was the first time I slept on
snow and also the first time I tried my new sleeping bag. The sleeping bag I
have is really good and it says that it can coop with minus –28 degrees Celcius. That is of course the extreme temperature but for
being comfortable it has to be -11 degrees and as we only had 0 degrees it was
very warm, especially when you were dressed with warm clothing like I was. This
heat made it hard to sleep and I probably slept about 1.5 hours. I think Thomas
also experienced the same problem.
We woke up
Soon we reached the first slope and
the pace slowed down a bit. Thomas seemed to be a bit out of shape but with a
slow pace we managed to take one steep slope after the other until we reached
the edge, which lead us to our goal, Tacul (4200m).
So far it had been quite easy with
just a couple of steep passages and all you had to do was to keep track of the
path and follow all the headlamps in front of you.
"The decision"
When we now were standing in the
dark we realized that all the people who had started walking at the same time
as us were not heading for the Tacul at all. Instead people were heading
straight for the summit of
"Thomas and the altitude"
It was here Thomas started to become
really slow. Even though it wasn't any steep parts he started panting all the
time. We tried to walk really slowly but it seemed that he was lacking the real
energy to continue with the steady slow pace. This made me a bit worried but we
still continued forward. This was the first real sign of the altitude sickness
or lack of energy.
"The first obstacle"
Our first real obstacle was a 3.5-5m
high wall, which we had to climb. On our way towards this obstacle we had met a
couple of people returning because of the difficulty of the wall, or if it was
the next wall we encountered I can't tell.
After about 30 minutes of waiting
underneath the wall it was finally our turn. We were now all alone, as everyone
else already had passed or turned back. Thomas managed to climb up without any
difficulties. He used both his and my ice axe when he climbed up and he climbed
without his backpack to make it easier. Now we had to figure out a way to get
his backpack up. After he had secured himself in a fixed pole an Italian couple
came and we let them pass while we were thinking. They had a lot of
difficulties and they never made it even though one of them managed to climb up
they decided to turn back to take a different route. After about one hour of
waiting we could finally continue. By this turn Thomas was frozen as he had to
sit still all the time waiting. It was
now my turn. I also managed to climb the wall without any bigger difficulties
many thanks to the secured rope and my ice axe, which Thomas had lowered down
to me. After that we pulled up Thomas backpack, which I had secured in the rope
before climbing.
While sitting resting Thomas opened
one of his carbines and suddenly our two walking poles just flow out and fell
down to the bottom, which we just had climbed. Thomas then lowered himself down
and picked up the poles but when he was climbing up again he lost his grip with
the two axes and he fell down to the bottom. It was a good thing that he was
secured with the rope so in the end the fall wasn't too bad and he made it
without any injuries. It could have ended with a fatal fall and that would have
been a tragic ending of our adventure.
After that a group of Swiss climbers
came and we let them pass. I helped to pull them up one after another and we
all helped out pulling up Thomas who was waiting at the bottom. These nice
fellows we encountered several times later on during our ascent.
After this event Thomas kind of lost
his touch. He told me he was in a bit of a chock state but that he still wanted
to continue. He couldn't walk many steps before he had to sit down and rest.
All the time during our slow walk we had been seeing our next big obstacle
"The wall" which we reached around lunchtime.
"The wall"
The wall is a famous passage along
the three-summit route and it is very steep. It's about 70m high and as it is
narrow it creates a mass queue of eager mountaineers who wants to climb up as
fast as possible. This can create some kind of irritation, which is not really
what you want in your current situation. Blue ice is often showing and the hard
snow makes it kind of difficult to climb.
After resting and waiting for about
one hour it was our turn. Thomas secured me at the bottom and I climbed up the
full length of the rope, which are only 30m. Then I needed more rope to be able
to secure Thomas and myself so I shouted to him to release the rope, which he
did. He then climbed after me in my footsteps until I reached some rocks, which
were located about 45m up from where we started. I secured us both with help of
the rock and there I waited until he reached the rocky area. After that I
continued the last 30m up to the top while he was waiting next to the stones.
At the top I found some fixed hooks, which I could use to secure Thomas but
then I realized that he had all the carbines so I couldn't secure him. Luckily
there were two Italians who borrowed me one carbine and they even helped me to
tie the knot for me. After that I could easily pull him up. When we finally
were up we rested and ate some lunch, chocolate and water, trying not to
reflect what we actually just accomplished. A foolish climb without much
security wasn't really what you wanted to think about and when you had the
summit of Mont Blanc just in front you easily forgot about the past. Now we got
new inspiration for the last part.
After taking some pictures we
continued on the other side of Mont Maudit.
"Thomas giving up"
It became incredible hot at this
point so after we had been walking for a while we decided to change our clothes
into something more comfortable. When we were ready to continue the last part
Thomas "throw in the towel". This was very unfortunate but Thomas
couldn't keep on going anymore he was too tired. He actually got dressed for
continuing walking but then he was just standing wobbling at the same place and
he looked extremely tired and luckily he realized this himself and he took the
hard decision to stay put while I went up the last part of the ascent. I know
it was a stupid decision but not at the time. The conditions were too good to
go back and just above some Swiss people were on the path.
"The summit"
The first part after that I had left
Thomas was tough. It was very steep and icy but taking it very easy, using the
crampons and the ice axe I succeeded without any difficulties. At the top of
that hill I met the three Swiss guys, who helped us before. They all agreed to
let me walk with them in their rope team the last part of the ascent. We hold a
steady slow pace and during about 2.5 hours we only took three short pauses.
You could always see the top in front of you but of some strange reason you
never reached it. You had to concur one hill after the other, each taking about
45 minutes. Stopping at this point would almost have been criminal so I just
continued even though I was dead tired.
From the place where I left Thomas
it probably took 3.5 hours to reach the summit.
The ascent itself wasn’t difficult
but it is quite hard in the sense of the high altitude and the pace you are
walking in.
Finally we reached the summit at
about 17.15pm and it was amazing!!! The views were magnificent and we were all
alone on the top of Mont Blanc. It was quite hot and I didn't wore more than my
shorts and my pair of boots but after 20 minutes it started to blow a chilly
wind so I had to put on some more clothing.
After taking all the necessary
pictures the Suisse guys left the summit to walk down towards the Vallot hut
(4200m) to sleep there for the night. At that point I was alone on the top of
Mont Blanc!!! Unfortunately that didn’t last long as two other climbers arrived
from the Italian side. Shortly after their arrival I left the summit in a rush,
as my thoughts were bended on poor Thomas laying waiting for me a few hours
walk away.
"The descent from the
summit"
The descent from the summit was an
easy task. During the descent I met two other climbers, which were heading for
the summit. Where they were going to sleep after reaching the summit I have no
idea but the sun was going down slowly and I didn't dare to think about the
darkness so I hasted on. Shortly I reached the icy part again and there I had
to take extra care before reaching Thomas who was lying on his backpack and
winter trousers. He had been asleep / half a sleep for about 5 hours and he was
a bit cold and had a headache.
We started walking back towards the
wall in a really slow pace resting as often as we could.
"The wall returns"
We reached the wall just before the
sunset and the view of the sunset was stunning but at this point we had other
things to think about and that was how to get down the wall as fast as possible
before it became dark. Thomas started to lower himself down like a member in a
SWAT team jumping from a helicopter or something similar leaving me at the top
of the wall wanting to do the same, I thought. He "secured" me 30m
down in one of the stones we used before and then I had to climb down the wall
with help of my “best friends”, the ice-axe and the crampons. This was very
unpleasant and you tried as hard as possible not to think about falling and
just to concentrate of what you were doing. Finally I reached the stone and
then Thomas flew down again using his "8" and the rope. This time
when Thomas tried to secure with the ice axe the snow was too hard to fully
secure me so the last part was even scarier.
It also became dark and due to the
steepness of the wall we couldn't reach our headlamps, as it was buried
somewhere in the backpack. Believe me you don't want to do any unnecessary
movements hanging on a slope than that.
I continued climbing down and
managed to get to the bottom. There I secured Thomas and it was his turn to
climb down the last 20 meters. After a while I asked him how it was going and I
got the reply: "I can't do it!” which wasn't exactly what I wanted to hear
at that moment. I tried to push him to think of any other solutions but it was
in vain. Apparently he had been so frozen hanging on the wall while I was
climbing so his whole body was shivering making climbing difficult. After a
while he started the descent in a slow pace and made it down successfully. He
lost one walking pole though but that was a price I gladly would have paid
anytime for still being alive.
"The new way"
Luckily I had asked a guide which we
met just before climbing the wall the first time if there was a different route
to the Cosmique hut than to climb up / down the first obstacle we encountered
and he said that it existed and he pointed at some small path in front of us.
We now found that path in the dark and we followed it blindly. It went mostly
downhill but it was kind of a winding road so it was no wonder we were not able
to find it before while we were doing the ascent. It wasn't too hard and
shortly we reached the valley between Mont Maudit and Tacul.
"Hallucinations"
After been walking on the flat
section for a while the only uphill that was left was the one facing the Tacul.
In that slope Thomas walked zigzag after me and I realized that I was starting
to hallucinate. I saw huts, boats, heads and animals in the snow. It was at the
point when I saw a Barbie doll lying on the snow I stopped for a break. After
eating chocolate and drinking water I was feeling much better and I didn't
hallucinate any further from that point. Even Thomas seemed to be better. We
reached the top of the ridge around
"Sunday 18/8-02"
"The final descent"
We now only had to walk down to the
tent but first we had to face the steep slope of Tacul. It was easy at first
but when it became steeper in the middle Thomas suddenly went passed me. He had
lost his grip with the crampons and before dragging me with him in the fall I
managed to secure us both with my ice-axe which stopped us at first but the
ice-axe lost it grip and we continued sliding down but at that point both me
and Thomas managed to get a good grip and we stopped just before the edge of a
crevasse that was in the middle of the path. We had been lucky again!
From there we took it really easy
and as the time past we saw climbers below us starting their ascent to the
Finally we were down!
"The tent"
Happy to be down we didn't realize
that it was quite difficult to find the tent. Thomas GPS had died because of
the cold and it took us about 30 to 40 minutes to locate the tent in the dark
and when we finally found it at 3:10am in the morning we noticed that the sun
during the day had melted the snow causing the tent to collapse so we had
re-built it. After we’ve done that we went directly to sleep. The sleeping bags
were of course not warm at the beginning but just after a couple of minutes
they were warm and cozy and we fell a sleep immediately.
"Morning and Aiguille du Midi"
Slept like log for several hours and
woke up 10.30am in quite a good shape (compared to Thomas who was swollen all
over his face). He still had the headache and while I went out fixing my gear,
sending text messages and calling my family and friends he tried to recover by
sleeping for an extra five hours.
In the end I felt that we needed to
move so I woke him up and we started to sort out everything that needed
sorting. It took quite a long time but we were not in a rush so we took it
slow. When we started walking Thomas was still suffering a lot so the pace was
very slow.
We never thought about what time it
was so when we finally arrived at the Aiguille du Midi they announced in the
speakers that the last cable car was leaving in about 10 minutes time, oh la la
we had been lucky once more. If I had let Thomas sleep just a little bit more
we would have had to rest another night on the mountain.
We took the last cable car down and
went to the car to get changed. After that we went eating on a fancy restaurant
in Chamonix VERY HAPPY to be down!
“The day after”
PS. I was red like a lobster…