Col Du Grand St Bernard
With the lifts about to shut for the season we headed over to the Col du Grand St Bernard between Switzerland and Italy for a night in the refuge.
The Col is one of, if not the oldest route through the Western Alps with evidence of use as far back as the Bronze ages. The pass is appears in history around 390BC and is well documented by the time of Julius Ceaser around 60BC. Napolean also famously crossed the pass in May 1800 with 6000 men and there’s a staue at the top to commemorate the feat.
More recently the Hospice and the Col has become synonymous with the image of the St Bernard dog with the barrel of brandy round it’s neck. The legend is that the brandy was to rejuvenate victims of avalanches or hypothermia until they could be rescued by the monks who acted as mountain guides.
The barrel of brandy appears to be part truth part legend but the dogs were certainly used by the monks, to clear paths in the snow following the scent of a trail buried in up to a metre of fresh snow and sniffing then digging out victims of avalanches, one dog is reported to have saved 40 lives, on finding the 41st victim the dog was stabbed by the victim who thought he was being attacked by a bear. The victim escaped from the snow and followed the blood trail left by the St Bernard back to the safety of the hospice where the dog later died. Sucks for the dog!
Not intending to die in an avalanche or stab anything a group of 3 of us set of early to hike up to the hospice, drop off some kit then head over to the Italian side to find some nice spring snow, leaving the rest of the group to come up later and meet us for dinner.
Parked at the bottom of the Col, in the summer there’s a road up to the top, this is as far as you can get until about July. Left about 9.30am for the hike up
Heading up with Craig and James, split boards have got to be the way forward, carrying boards is hard work!
Looking up the last part of the route to the Hospice, is a bit steeper than the first part as it doesn’t follow the road. About an hour into the climb by now and starting to get pretty hot.
The top, well the hospice/refuge anyway. 2500m above sea level and a well earned 15min break to drop off some overnight kit we didn’t need to carry any further. Whole climb took about 1hr30. Jamie blitzed it later in the day in 1hr12 but we can’t all be whippets.
Looking back from the Italian side at the statue of Napolean, the frozen lake and the Hospice in the distance, the mountains aren’t wonky in Italy it was just really hot and couldn’t see anything on the camera display as it was so bright.
We’re going up where? There?
Once we dropped down into the valley on the Italian side we traversed round to a non-south facing slope as there were signs of recent avalanche activity on the sun facing slopes. We picked a route up the North facing side of a gully and set off with boards on backs and Craig skinning up, and yes it is as steep as it looks.
It was now seriously hot as my sunburned forehead will testify to! The climb took us another hour or so with the going getting harder near the top as the sun degraded the snow even more until snow shoes were sinking in on the deeper snow on the top ridges. We stopped just short of the top (10m or so) as the snow was almost impossible to walk up by now and we’d run out of time to traverse round any further.
At the top and in serious need of a sit down!
Craig and James set off first in the slush, having seen how soft it was I opted for one mahoosive toe side turn down the main face really letting go as the snow was slowing things down a bit. The climb back up to the hospice nearly killed me!
The best looking refuge ever! Complete with comfy beds, electricity, hot water and an awesome room.
The others including Kate, joined us later in the evening as we got to sit down to veggie soup, pasta and tuna salad and apple compote, none of us lasted very long before hitting the hay.
The next day was pretty cloudy higher up and spoilt the plan to re-climb the same route as the day before and then drop off the back, back down to the car park. Still didn’t spoil a good group photo.
Heading back down after a fantastic couple of days. One of the best places I have ever visited without a doubt.
Pointe De La Vorlaz
Pepsi Max run from the top of the Pointe De La Vorlaz 2346m. Superb off-piste run but the climb is not for the faint hearted!
Started out with a couple of runs through the trees of to the side of the Stash before heading up Le Choucas lift and playing around on the SnowCross for a bit to warm up.
The SnowCross is basically an area that is not pisted but is patrolled, monitored and avalanche controlled, basically off piste but with more of the risks removed.
All limbered up and ready to go we headed to the top of the Cubore ‘up and over’ lift to start the traverse round the South face of the peak from about 2200m.
At the end of the traverse on the South side getting packed away ready for the climb up the face. Was pretty bare as the wind had removed a lot of the snow leaving ice and really hard clumps of grass, excellent climbing conditions!
Once you come off the face at a small col by the satellite station you turn left up onto the ridge for the last couple of hundred metres.
About halfway it gets pretty narrow and exposed although the footholds are better than on the face.
The last section of the ridge leading up to the summit.
The top! And no it’s not trick photography and I’m not a midget, Craig is huge. The descent is all down a North face back towards the Lindaret bowl. No pictures as I was far to busy enjoying all the fantastic snow.
Rochers De La Chaux
10 Mins outside of Morzine is the Rochers De La Chaux in Bas Thex. We’ve not had a chnace to climb there yet with the summer lifts being open it’s all been biking and walking so far so we headed up to reccy the crag for the inter season when the lifts are shut.
The ‘Elephant’s Nose’ as it’s know locally, the site of the Rochers De La Chaux
Routes through the trees, difficult to see the bolts on these photos but all the routes are incredibly well protected with bolts every 3-4m. Our adventure weeks next summer will definately be including several days climbing here. There are over 90 routes, most of them grade 4-5 with multi-pitch routes and some via-feratta. This makes it well within any intermediate climber to have an excellent 3-4 days climbing on a wide variety of routes.
All the routes are clearly marked and really well protected. It’s hard to get over just how many different routes there are.
Scoping out the start of the 90m multi pitch route
Pointe De Ressachaux
Why do people climb mountains? Mainly because they’re there! So it was with the Pointe de Ressachaux, it’s been staring at us all winter season when we’ve been stood on the balcony of the chalet (it’s the isolated peak over to the right). With the sun shining and the lifts not quite open it seemed now was a good time to walk to the top.
As with pretty much all of the routes we’ve been following on the iGN (Institut Geographique National) start of the trail was easy to find and well signposted , the trail then procedeed to go pretty much straight up and continued going staight up for quite a way. Still nothing like getting straight to the point with a path, no switchbacks, no corners just straight up. It all made for some good excersize and glimpses throught the trees back down into the valley until we got to the platuea before the summit peak.
Despite the slightly ominous looking (and sounding) clouds coming our way the sun came out at the top giving as an excellent few back down the path and into the valley.
We made the summit in another hour making the whole climb a lesuirely 3.5 hours or so. Maybe not the best walk for continous views but one of those wlaks we had to do just because it was there!
Total Time: approx 5hrs (including lunch!)
Total Height Climbed: 850m
Weather: Sunny 25 Deg C
+ Excellent view from the top
- Unrelenting path
= A challenging walk but with no rewards until right at the top 7/10
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The French Alps
