When he Alps give you lemons...
...make lemoncello.
Not much as far as TGR radical TRs go, but it is summer and hopefully this will add some small amount of stoke.
I had been wanting to do the Haute Route for years, and this looked like the year it was going to happen. Had a few people lined up, but between babies, weddings and college tuition (not necessarily in that order,) I said fuck it i am going anyway.
So instead of lining up a private guide for our group, I ended up a group of one, so just booked a scheduled trip with Francis Kelsey (Gordy's euro guide connection.) www.nosiesta.com
Turns out the two others on the trip flaked five days before the trip and stiffed Francis they even wanted their deposit back:fuckyou: So, the first lemons turned into a week of private guiding, so not a bad start. I arrived to find the Sahara feun winds completely fucking up the snowpack and weather conditions. The first day was supposed to be the shake down day on Vallee Blanche, but the Midi was closed due to winds (the next lemon) so over to Argentiere to ski some glaciers and see how conditions were up high...they sucked. Fog, clouds, brown snow/crust and just generally crappy conditions. Visibilty was so bad that you had to look for brown snow (Sahara sand), and avoid white (hard crust where the sand just blew off) to make survival turns.
Francis hooked up with his network, and all his guide friends were stuck in various huts lamenting the weather and waiting it out (you can only play so many hands of cards in an alpine mountain hut.) Conditions were no better in the morning, so we decided to make lemoncello of our lemons and head to Finale, Italia for some Riviera limestone.
Unfortunately half way between Genoa and Finale Francis's van broke down, so after well over an hour of sitting on an Italian freeway we got towed back to Genoa, dropped the van at a repair shop, grabbed a cab to the airport and rented a car to finally make it to Finale, a great little old Italian town complete with castles walled cities are great bars and food.
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We spent a couple days sport climbing the area and did a spectacular limestone traverse just meters above the Mediterranean Sea. A couple moves were on wet rock from sea spray, and a fall often would have meant a dunking in the sea.
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The route traverses between the sea and the highway for about ten pitches.
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The weather was looking more favorable, and the van was repaired, so back to Genoa and then on to Cervinia, Italy, the Italian side of the Matterhorn.
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We headed up to the Theodul Hut, but food poisoning from the night before put me out of sorts, and I was sick as a dog that night. Fortunately I was reasonably better the next day, so we had an easy day skiing some of the piste and off-piste runs in and around Zermatt and Cerinia, and finished the day in Zermatt and headed to a hotel on the far side of town.
Swiss ski lifts are different
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Just before reaching the hotel, did I say it was on the far side of town? I realized I left my ski poles at the end of the piste. I jump on a bus (all electric) and head back up the valley, but since the signs were in German I got on the wrong bus, so end up on the wrong side of the valley. The bus driver actually seemed pissed that I got on his bus by mistake, but he could have just been taking normal in German which sounds angry. I found the bridge across the river, found my poles, then hoofed it back to the hotel.
At least it snowed that night, and dawned with blue bird skies,
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so we headed up the gondola, got the first cabin to the Klein Matterhorn (one advantage of having a guide, since unguided groups or individuals were not allowed.)
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We were able to skin to the top of the Briethorn and ski off and on piste all the way back to Cervinia, and the nearest bar.
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That afternoon we headed back to Chamonix were Francis was meeting a bunch of Brits for a week long tour, but Francis hooked me up with a friend who had a father/son client going to Vallee Blanche, so I got to tag along and finally tick that one off. (Some may remember I jacked my knee at the last Euro Gordy camp and missed all the good shit.)
Alberto the Italian guide and one of his clients that I got to tag along with.
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The ice cave on the Mer de Glace is always cool.
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I had planned to climb and ski Mont Blanc, but since I did very little actual skiing, skinning and acclimatizing, I gave up that idea and headed to Annecy, France for a couple days since the weather was turning bad again.
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Fine, civilized French dinning
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I finished up the trip with a day in Geneva, and some pretty cool third century Roman mosaics under the cathedral.
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So, the trip didn't go as planned, not even close, but by being flexible we managed to have a pretty damn good time. Since the trip started in Chamonix, included skiing in the Alps and finished (sort of) in Zermatt, we figured it did count as a Haute Route, just a new variation which we called the Finale variation (not as well know as the Verbier variation.) Francis posted a few sport climb pics from Italy to his bros stuck in various huts and got some interesting responses.
If anybody is planning a trip climbing, skiing, hiking, et al, amd is looking for a great guide, Francis is the man.
Cheers
