Ken Welsh
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Hello All
I'm back. A bit bruised and battered. What an awesome experience. We had three days on the Sunday, Monday and Tuesday of what I can only describe as mountaineering "boot camp" on the Mont Blanc Massif living out of a mountain hut, with little sleep, where we were pushed and bullied to our limits which was exhausting as hell at high altitude. This included a brief trek to a high level pass at 3400 metres with 70 mph winds, which was the border into Switzerland. "Do this, do that, march up here, march up there, do it again but faster, still not good enough, do it again, keep that rope tight, stand up straight Ken" - that type of thing. Our guides were seriously qualified with Everest and K2 success amongst them. Dave Hollinger my personal guide and great poker player lost his finger to frostbite in the Himalaya. Loose a glove and you loose a hand he would say. The weather conditions were dreadful on the Monday and Tuesday with over a metre of snow falling on the Tuesday. This falling onto ice makes for very unstable ground. It might as well have been marbles falling out of the sky. Therefore the risk of avalanche was a category 4/5 - high to very high.
All day on Tuesday we could see for ourselves that the conditions were getting worse. We were then gathered together on the Tuesday night to be advised by our senior guide that the chance of success of breaking through onto the Mont Blanc summit ridge was rated at only 10 per cent if and when we started the climb for real on the Wednesday. We were given some other options, one of which was to travel to Italy to have a crack at another 4000 metre peak called "Gran Paradiso". A successful bid was rated at 70%. This is Italy's highest mountain that stands entirely in Italy. Of course we had the option of going for the Blanc. But we all felt that it was a long way to come not to climb anything at all and only a ten per cent chance of success was not good odds. So we all opted to try and bag the big Italian peak. As it turned out it took us a day and a half to climb. The summit bid started at 03.30 in the morning. The head torches were on and up we went in the dark. It was below freezing - minus fifeteen - but clear. The summit had an extremely airy crest at the very top and the last sixty metres or so I found technically very challenging. So around 09.30 on the 19th June 2008 at the age of fifty I achieved my first 4000 metre peak.
As it turned out we chose wisely as sadly a rope of three attempted who The Mont Blanc on the Wednesday morning were swept away by an avalanche on the same route we would have taken. They included a well known French guide Patrick Monzat, 58, who died. His clients were pretty badly injured but last report was they were still alive in hospital. Our guides in turn were subdued about the loss of someone they knew.
On the Friday the day was as clear as a bell. The Mont Blanc still hadn't been climbed by anyone all week. We opted for a "rest" day and crossed the "Valley Blanche" glacier back into Italy again pretty much following the line of the Mont Blanc Tunnel but 3500 metres above it. Quite stunning!
I've learned many new skills and many things about myself. I feel for the family of Patrick Monzat who started the week like me with the aspiration of conquering The Mont Blanc. I lived to tell the tale. He didn't.
KEN WELSH