You can never be certain of the weather in the high mountains but sometimes you just have to make a plan and hope for the best.
Last weekend we had decided to head up the Aiguille du Midi to spend a night in a refuge to celebrate a friends birthday. The plan was to meet at 3.15pm to get the 4pm cable car up to the top of the midi before enjoying an easy decent down the Vallee blanche to the Requin Hut, where we could enjoy the sunset, have a meal together, drink a few glasses of wine, sleep at the refuge and then wake up to a glorious morning in the mountains, ready to enjoy a Sunday of skiing and maybe some ski touring, But it didn't quite go to plan...
The weather turned on Saturday afternoon with the cloud coming in on top of the midi just as we were starting our journey up. By the time we reached the top the cloud was thick, the wind was starting to get and it was snowing slightly. We descended the arête with caution to assess the situation, chatted to a few guides who were also there with clients and eventually made the decision that we were not going to make it to the Requin Hut that evening. We could see maybe just 3 metres in front of us and with a group of 11 it was going to be impossible to keep an eye on everyone, let alone ensure that were taking the correct path down over the glacier.
A phone call to the Requin Hut to discuss our options resulted in us calling the Cosmiques Refuge to see if they had room for us. Luckily they did...although they suggested that they may be a bit short on food! So we were then able to make the easier traverse from the end of the arête round the bottom of the rock face where we had better visibility and a few navigation markers that meant we could reach the refuge safely. After the traverse there was a short steep boot pack up to the refuge where we roped up for safety purposes as we were still covering glacial landscape.
The Cosmiques Refuge is situated just below the Aiguille du Midi at a height of 3613m, just over a 1000m higher than the Requin where we had planned to stay. This additional height made quite a difference with a few people having head aches and dizziness, plus of course the difficulty of climbing just 2 sets of stairs to get to bed...it felt like running a marathon! Luckily for us our friend and birthday boy was Dr Hugo Nespoulet of Ifremmont - 'Institut de Formation et de Recherche en Medecince de Montagne' - who specialises in altitude sickness as well as teaching aid techniques and specific treatments for mountain disease prevention and attitudes to adopt in hostile environments. We were all reassured that our symptoms were normal and so we set about making ourselves at home for the night!
The food at the refuge was surprisingly good - I can't imagine that getting the food up there is particularly easy and cooking at altitude also comes with its own problems. But we all ate well, despite their worry about a lack of food for us, and we enjoyed the friendly atmosphere of the dining area with a few glasses of wine, several renditions of happy birthday (we were not the only one celebrating!) in various languages, some rather competitive card games and a spectacular sunset to boot! With a breakfast spot booked for 7am - the latest one they do, the others being at 1am, 3am and 5am! - we dragged ourselves up the two flights of stairs to our bunk room.
Day 2 and we woke up at 6.30am to a glorious sunrise and clear skies over the Vallee Blanche and surrounding mountain ranges. It was quite a surreal experience to wake up in the high mountains and especially with so many friends around us. Watching the sunrise was followed by a hearty breakfast and the gathering of all our gear so that we could finally continue our journey down the glacier to the Requin Hut.
With the sun only just up the snow was less than ideal. Very chopped up, crusty, icy in places and like concrete in others. Luckily none of us had been expecting a powder run! We were more than happy to take it easy and enjoy the scenery on what was a very beautiful Sunday morning. After stopping in at the Requin Hut for a cup of tea we broke off into two groups, one heading back down to Montenvers for the return journey to Chamonix and one heading onwards and upwards for a short ski tour up towards the Aiguille du Tacul.
I quite swiftly decided that the 430 steps at the end of the Mer de Glace to reach the Montenvers train was going to be enough exercise for me and with snow conditions not at their best I was happy to head home. So we began nervously negotiating an unusually tricky Mer de Glace track home. We made it over the glacier, through the moraine, to the ice caves, and up to the train. Getting the 11.30am train down it felt as though we had already spent a long day in the mountains but happily had the rest of the day in the glorious sunshine of Chamonix to recover!
Staying in a mountain refuge is a great experience and we are lucky in Chamonix that they are so close and (relatively) easy to reach. If you are wanting to do something a little different and experience life in the high mountains then this is definitely something I would recommend.
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NB: Off piste skiing and mountaineering are dangerous. The opinions expressed in these articles are very much time and condition specific and the content is not intended in any way to be a substitute for hiring a mountain guide, undergoing professional mountaineering training and/or the individual's own back country decision making.
