‘Ho, ho, ho,’ rumbled the elderly guide, escort to a family party on the Haute Route, his laugh loud in an all but empty Schönbiel hut. ‘Le face nord, peut-être. Ho, ho, ho.’
We tried to look as though we had not heard, though grins showed that everybody else had. The cause of the merriment was our desire to leave the hut at midnight. Instead of explaining to the guardian why we wanted to get up at such an unearthly hour, Dick, bashful English gentleman that he is, had only admitted to the half of it. The guardian’s amazement on hearing that we were merely skiing to Arolla was understandable. The mad English at it again. But maybe we could not have won, whatever we said. The following afternoon, toiling up the lower slopes of the Rosablanche, when Arolla was a distant memory, we passed two Germans resting on a rock. To the usual questions we answered truthfully that we had left the Schönbiel that morning and intended to be in Verbier that evening. Their reaction was no less incredulous, nay derisory, than the guardian’s ...
Yet in their case the incredulity was unjustified. Sometimes called the Glacier Patrol, the route from Zermatt to Verbier is a popular variant on the Haute Route. Usually, it is skied in three or four days, stopping overnight at the Vignettes hut, the Cabane des Dix and sometimes the Cabane Mont Fort. Sections of the Swiss army, however, used to hold an annual race over the route, completing it in a single day, hence the name. This marathon was discontinued after one team had been killed in a crevasse attempting a short cut, but the idea of repeating it had appealed to Dick Sykes for a long time.
Dick, a veteran of Masherbrum and many another foreign range, did not take up skiing till his mid-twenties and with characteristic thoroughness became an instructor before attempting to ski-tour. When he did, he skied the Haute Route three times in his first season. Since then he has skied it solo and was a member of the Alpine Ski Traverse in 1972. In the Glacier Patrol, he saw a test of fitness and stamina uphill, of route-finding ability and safe skiing downhill, and of the efficient interchanging of bindings, skins and crampons that over a long day can save not just minutes but hours. Also, I suspect, he was motivated by a desire to continue the work of the Alpine Ski Traverse in demonstrating that the English do know how to use skis in the mountains. As Marcel Kurz, pioneer ski tourer and prolific Swiss guidebook writer, wrote: ‘It is a curious fact that the English … were the first to explore our Alps and the last to explore them on ski.’ While English-speaking climbers have earned for themselves a measure of respect in the Alps, the Briton as ski tourer is still regarded with some amusement, particularly by the armies of massive, over-equipped Teutons that throng the Haute Route.
For my part, I welcomed the idea of a ski tour that would be physically taxing. Frank Smythe once said: ‘It took the Himalaya to teach me the delights of mountain travel and I now know that to cross a range by a pass is every whit as enjoyable as climbing a peak.’ Fair enough; that is what ski touring is all about after all. But if mountain travel is to be as enjoyable as mountain climbing, it must, in its own way, be equally demanding. As a recent convert to ski touring, I was enthusiastic about the skiing and the scenery, but hitherto the relative lack of effort involved had left me faintly dissatisfied. The average day lasts only six hours, some of it downhill, the rest in the relaxed rhythm of uphill skinning. Typically, having arrived about midday at a hut, most of the afternoon is slept away and at night Mogodon tablets are swallowed as a matter of course to induce more sleep. Depending on whether you are a piste skier or a climber, this is either an extremely strenuous way of obtaining a downhill run, or a soft option for aging alpinists. I am very much a climber on planks, my usual stance is a despairing snowplough and I do not feel safe unless my skis are at least a foot apart. But I am not yet aging and I am puritan enough to regard drugs as even less desirable artificial aids than expansion bolts. I miss the long full days of the summer. Though neither the skiing nor the climbing would be difficult, Dick’s plan offered a tour that would be as physically demanding as a summer route, with the added incentive of covering ground in a way never possible when climbing. To cross six passes and ski seventy kilometres of glaciated country in a day would be mountain travel with a vengeance.
In the event, we did not emerge from the hut to a cold, clear night till 12.30. We cramponed down the steep moraine bank west of the hut, then skied cautiously to the foot of the rognon where the long climb up the Zmutt glacier begins. Conditions were icy and harscheisen (ski crampons) essential. Really, proper crampons would have been more suitable: harscheisen are invaluable on crust or névé but less effective on ice. Halfway up a steep slope one of mine bent 90° sideways, causing a retaining clip on the ski to shear under the strain. Fortunately the snow became softer soon afterwards and we did not meet anything seriously icy again. Now it was just a matter of following an intricately entwined mass of descending ski tracks, all of which converged whenever a crevasse became apparent, so route-finding was no problem
Torch batteries came and went, and by 4.15 a.m. we were on top of the Col de Valpelline. We had overestimated the time required and as a result it was still pitch dark. Instead of the pleasant run down to the foot of the Col du Mont Brulé we had been looking forward to, we descended in a series of careful traverses, skins still on the skis. It was light, however, by the time we reached the top of the col, and as we took the skins off with numb, clumsy fingers prior to side-slipping down the couloir on the far side, a fiery glow was creeping along the jagged skyline to the east. The sky, still deep indigo overhead, was cloudless. It promised to be a perfect day.
A wind had been tidying up the Arolla glacier and the Haute Route trail to the Col de l’Evêque was barely discernible. As yet, we had the mountains to ourselves. When we parted from the old track and headed down the glacier in a long, gentle, quietly hissing glide, it was with a sense of mingled power and privilege similar to that with which an artist, filled with a creative idea, must approach a clean canvas or a block of marble. Alas, the runes I carved upon that unsullied surface would have delighted no connoisseur. But there was no-one to see, the young sleep-flushed world was all our own, and we wheeled our way down the glacier in a glorious orgy of unmeaningful self-expression.
Ribbons of snow transported us along the valley floor to within a mile of Arolla, and just after 7 a.m. we entered the palatial Hotel Mont Collon in search of a pre-arranged breakfast. As we were escorted past immaculately coiffured skiers down a long corridor to the dining room, I hastily plucked lumps of ice from my beard and tried to look respectable. Unfortunately, the ice started melting in my hand, leaving a trail of drips down the corridor. Panicking, I furtively dropped it behind a door for some luckless chambermaid to discover. The dining room exuded an aura of Edwardian elegance. Its highly polished wooden floor gleamed, walls and ceiling were beautifully panelled, and carved wooden pillars did their best to split up its dauntingly empty expanse into segments. There were two waiters with little to do but attend to our needs. The first fitted his surroundings perfectly, tall and aloof, with a little moustache. He brought us a basket containing four slices of bread and a pat of butter and a pot of jam each. The second waiter, short and plump, slightly spotty and with long lank hair, was less of a period piece. He took one look and brought us a whole plateful of butter and jam and not only more bread but rolls and croissants also. Steadily the mound of butter wrappers and jam pots in the middle of the table rose until it threatened to overtop the coffee pot. Our eating, once the first pangs had been satisfied, was methodical and conscientious. Residents, sauntering in for breakfast, hastily averted their eyes and made for the other side of the room.
At last capacity was reached and we walked, rather heavily, to the ski tow 100 yards away. Enquiry over the phone had revealed that this was the penultimate day on which it would be running. A glance at the snowless slopes made one doubt whether it had, in fact, been running for weeks. More as a formality than with any real hope, we approached the deserted shack at the bottom. Suddenly to our surprise, a door opened and a head looked out. Yes, the lift was working. When would it start? Whenever we liked. This carefree attitude apparently did not extend to free tickets and Dick had learnt by bitter experience in the past that an instructor’s licence broke no ice here. Different tactics were needed. ‘Je suis le guide,’ he announced importantly, adding, with an apologetic glance in my direction, ‘Il est le client.’ I attempted to look suitably wealthy although I suspect that the patches on my breeks would have given the game away if nothing else did. The lift attendant merely snorted, however, and let us through on the one ticket.
Having walked 100 metres up the hillside to find a tenuous thread of snow beneath the wires, we were whisked up 400 metres at breakneck speed. I am convinced that the attendant maliciously turned the engine on to full power for our benefit. Hurtling like an unskilled rodeo rider over a series of switchback bumps, scraping noisily over patches of soil and grass, and frantically lifting first one ski and then the other to avoid wickedly protruding boulders I somehow made it to the top.
We found ourselves in a beautiful hanging valley leading up to the Pas de Chèvres. The route is unglaciated and straightforward, leaving one free to enjoy a fine view of the Pigne d’Arolla, an impressively steep mountain from this side, though it is often traversed from east to west on skis. From the col, metal ladders take one down thirty metres of vertical rock to easier ground. I should imagine that even ‘les chèvres’ found the pass a problem before the ladders were erected. While we waited for two Italians who were on their way up the ladders, we switched on our Autophons. These are little RT devices with a range of sixty metres which increasing numbers of ski tourers carry in order that they can locate each other in the event of an avalanche. Speed is of the essence if an avalanche victim is to be dug out alive.
On the far side of the Glacier de Cheilon we could see the Cabane des Dix, the great triangular face of Mont Blanc de Cheilon looming over it, but we headed north, straight down the glacier, until forced over to the west bank by the gorge running into the Lac des Dix. The skiing was all that Spring skiing should be, on a frozen surface just beginning to thaw. Even I could turn on it, in a faltering zigzag, and Dick swooped down in a series of graceful arcs. The previous month, we learnt later, a guide going ahead to assess the danger of the steep slope that descends to the lake, had been carried away by a slab avalanche. But there was little fear of avalanche now – in places we were sidestepping down grass.
The route along the west shores of the lake is another notorious avalanche trap, usually regarded as risky until May. It was now 19 April. But even high up on the threatening east slopes there was relatively little snow and it was not yet midday, so we had no qualms about continuing. Langlauf – heels up but without skins – proved the quickest way of travelling along the undulating track beside the lake, and before long we were starting up the 900 metre haul to the Rosablanche (3,336 metres). There is another route to the south which involves slightly less climbing, but we calculated that going over the summit of the mountain would be both safer and, in the long run, quicker, as well as giving a magnificent viewpoint. It was a hot, tiring climb under the afternoon sun, the only relief being a delicious little stream which broke free from the snow just long enough for a drink and a quick cool splash to a sweating brow. Despite the thin snow cover, the traverse of a south and east-facing slope to reach the little Glacier de Mourti felt a definite avalanche risk, though fortunately short. The north side of the glacier itself was littered with avalanche debris. From the col at the head of the glacier, a short easy scramble carrying skis brought us, at 4 p.m., to the summit of the Rosablanche where some wag had planted a miniature fir tree. It was obviously a popular ski mountain, for down below a maze of tracks led away in all directions, including towards the Col de Momin, our next objective. The broad hump of Mont Blanc dominated the view to the west; not far to the south, hazily seen against the light, lay the sprawling mass of the Grand Combin, lesser peaks clustered about it like obsequious courtiers; and far away to the south-east were the unmistakable profiles of the Matterhorn and Dent d’Hérens, afternoon cloud clinging, precariously it seemed in the perfection of the day, to their tops. With a glow of pleasure I remembered watching their changing outlines against the starlit sky as we had skied beneath them that morning.
The snow on the north side of the mountain had remained a beautiful powder. Carried away, I became over-venturesome and swiftly paid the penalty. The trouble with skiing in woollen breeches and sweater is that snow clings to wool as tenaciously as any burr, and a fall transforms one into a snowman. Moreover, a really purposeful crash usually means breeches full of snow which comes in at the top and is prevented by gaiters from escaping at the bottom. After two such harrowing experiences in quick succession, I reverted to the snowplough.
The Col de Momin to the Col de la Chaux presented no problems, but only because the weather was good and we had a track to follow. This area is complex and in poor visibility, without a track, route finding could be extremely difficult. It is potentially dangerous too, though judging by the debris, most of the snow had already come down.
The approaches to the Col de la Chaux, our final col, were in shadow by now, and it was with the never-failing thrill of emerging from darkness into light that we stood on top in the warm gold of evening, taking off skins, already freezing rigid, for the last time. Down below, on a prominent knoll beside the glacier, stood the Cabane Mont Fort, for so long a goal, suddenly a tangible reality.
One and a half hours later, and nineteen hours after leaving the Schönbiel, having traversed the hillside below the hut to the ski complex known as la Ruinette, and descended the icy remnants of a piste, we were walking the last few hundred feet down towards Verbier. The sun, which had played so large a part in the pleasures and anxieties of the day, had bowed and gone, leaving the mountains sharply silhouetted against a backdrop of flawless pink. Neon signs in the town flickered, garishly like ill-chosen footlights to the show. Intent on beating the dark, we had scarcely noticed the last act of the drama. Now the curtain was dropping. We had won the race, but for a moment, I almost wished we hadn’t.