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Published on Leave a comment on Alpine Crossing 2013 – Day 16: Rifugio Tetras Lyre – Rifguio G. Muzio

What a long day. Our feet hurt and we don’t want to move anymore – today :) Actually we planned  to walk only half a day after the Gran Paradiso. We wanted to sleep at Rif. Citta di Chivasso and we thought arriving at about 2pm on a Tuesday would be sufficient to get two places to sleep without prior reservation. So this assumption was wrong…when we arrived the owner told us that the hut is already completely booked. Up to this point the path was absolutely great. First we climbed up a nice and narrow mountain path from 2000m to about 2800m. There we had a long break. We were able to see the Gran Paradiso from here. From there we walked down 400m and then continued through a very wide and long valley. There we saw many different flowers and lakes all around. When the hut owner told us that the hut is already booked I think we looked quite stupid… We had to walk down to the next hut approx. 1000m below the other one. The path was a long and boring road… For some time the weather has been expected to change to rain and thunderstorm. And when we looked up to the sky it was obvious that it was only a question of hours before the storm will start. So we hurried like idiots down the long road to the next Rifugio. Two hours before the storm we finally arrived… This is still enough time but on the other hand we didn’t know when it is going to start… I guess every friend of mountaineering knows this feeling… In the end we ordered half a liter of wine to finish this day.

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Published on Leave a comment on Alpine Crossing 2013 – Day 15: Gran Paradiso

Today we got up at 4am… It was still dark when we started to Gran Paradiso. There were quite a lot of people which had the same destination today… At the beginning we were quite fast. At about 3700m my feet became quite cold – even if we were moving all the time… Lisa had the same problem. Exactly the same we experienced last year when we climbed the Finsteraarhorn. There we thought it was just because it was terribly cold that morning. This morning was different and still we had cold feet. Probably our shoes have a bad temperature isolation…anyway :) Up to the last 100m going upwards was like taking a walk in the snow :) The glacier was completely covered with snow and everything was frozen. So we had no troubles with crevasses. Also the height we almost didn’t feel. The last 100m were very steep and the panorama to the other side opened. We were able to see the Monte Rosa Massife and the Matterhorn. Unfortunately the summit was quite crowded. At the very top is a Madonna statue located. A quite narrow ridge leads to this statue and all the time people want to go to and away from the Madonna. From the ridge it goes downwards almost vertically…hard to say how far but if one falls down he won’t survive for sure. This was the worst part but we finally made it to the Madonna statue and back :) The descent was very quick and much easier. Meanwhile the sun came out and made the snow  getting soft so that we could partly slide down the way. At 12 o’clock we were back at the hut and enjoyed some pasta. After another hour in the sun we climbed down to a small Rifugio on 2000m. From here we will continue tomorrow :)

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Published on Leave a comment on Alpine Crossing 2013 – Day 14: Valsavarenche – Rifugio Vitt. Emanuele II

Our destination for today is Rifugio Vitt. Emanuele II on about 2700m. From here we want to climb the Gran Paradiso tomorrow. From Valsavarenche we start a two hours walk to Pont along a quite boring road. On our way we have been taken over by one of the two only busses today. The weather is good, it is still early in the morning, we feel good :) …so the two hours pass quickly. At Pont we find a very small supermarket and buy a new bread :-D We leave some things like stove, helmet, cooking material and some clothes at a hut below. All those things we do not need the next day. This reduces the weight by about 4-5kg! We are very fast upwards overtaking everyone on the way to the hut :) – actually feels like flying :) At the hut we meet Gianni – our guide – again. It is quite full today – probably because of Sunday…but maybe also because tomorrow is the last day with good weather for a while. Lets see if the weather forecast is correct…. We have a very small but nice chamber tonight :) Tomorrow we will get up at 4 am, have breakfast and then start to walk to the top of Gran Paradiso.

Published on Leave a comment on Alpine Crossing 2013 – Day 13: Courmayeur – Valsavarenche

Those two days we walked a very long and boring road from Courmayeur to another valley. The regions we passed seemed to be far away from any hiking tourism. There were almost no signs and many paths on the map were no longer there. So we tried very hard to find a way by foot to our destination. The first day it worked :) I would not have believed that but on the second day we finally had to give up. When we stood in front of a long tunnel and the cars passed us with 120km/h we decided to take the bus for a few kilometres. I think it would have been quite dangerous entering such a tunnel by foot. There was nothing for pedestrians at all. It took the bus only about 10 minutes to get to our destination. From there we walked again. One night we slept at a very nice guesthouse. A big kitchen, the living room and the garden was free to use for everyone :) Luciana, the owner also lived in the same house with her three kids. This created a nice atmosphere – like in this american television show – I can’t remember the name….

Published on Leave a comment on Alpine Crossing 2013 – Day 11: Refuge de Requin – Courmayeur

What a great day! We got up at 6. After a quick breakfast, packing and putting on all the equipment we left the hut at 7:15. The first thing was to pass the ice fall which was to the right approx. 200m above our heads. We asked the guide if we should wear the helmet. He just smiled and said: If you feel better…. :-) But if this comes down you don’t need a helmet ;-) And so we quickly crossed the ice fall and luckily no ice and no stones came down at this time – probably also because it was still quite early. The next thing to pass were some big crevasses which were partly still covered with snow. Parts we had to go in parallel to the crevasses what actually created a strange feeling because you never know what is under your feet. After 2 hours the critical parts were done. Then we could fully enjoy walking on the glacier. There were still some crevasses but they were not so big. After 4:30 hours we finally arrived at Rif. Turino which is already in Italy. There were quite some people around which all came up with the cable car. From this hut (~3300m) we planned to climb down to Courmayeur. Unfortunately the path down to the middle station of the cable car was too dangerous since it is very steep and there is still lots of snow. Our guide recommended us to take the cable car at least to the middle station. From the middle station it was approx. 90 minutes by foot to Courmayeur. Here we found a quite nice and cheap one star hotel :-) For dinner we had a huge pizza :-)