Beaucoup de Vent
Two things happened after I wrote yesterday’s post. The first was that I did actually manage to swim (a single stroke) in our icy lake. The second was that the sun disappeared and we experienced the biggest storm we’ve seen so far. So don’t believe anything you read on this blog.
The storm had been forecast, and was one of the reasons we decided not to tackle the Col des Gourgs-Blancs - the guidebook says it’s dangerous in bad weather. Actually, if I’m being perfectly honest, we’d decided to have the two half-days before we found out about the weather, but the storm seems like a better excuse than being tired, so we’ll just pretend, ok?
For an hour or two the cloud had been building and the thunder began rumbling, though it seemed like it was missing our valley. Klaas and I climbed a little hill and watched some dramatic lightening in other valleys but predictably that was the moment the rain hit our part of the world. We ran back down to our tents and hid as the rain turned into hail and 1cm chunks of ice began falling out of the sky. The tents didn’t seem too concerned by this though, and the only damage incurred was when I looked out from the tent’s porch and got hit on the head!
By the time we went to bed the skies had cleared and we assumed that the worst was over, but during the night the rain returned and the wind became quite terrifying. Around 02:30 Klaas and I both switched our head-torches on to check the pegs were all staying in the ground - it was one of the windiest nights I’ve ever had in a tent. The tents survived this second battle with nature fine, but it wasn’t the best night’s sleep!
The sky still looked a bit suspect this morning but the worst it managed was a few short showers. Klaas and I had a great climb from our lakeside bivouac site (first photo, lake is left of centre) up to Col des Gourgs-Blancs, ending with an enormous snowfield leading up to the col (second photo). For some reason that snowfield gave me a real buzz - it felt so remote, like it represented what the HRP was all about.
We had quite a steep descent but it wasn’t long before we began climbing again, firstly to Col de Pluviometre then on up to Tusse de Montarqué (2,889m), which is the highest we’ve been so far. The third photo is from the summit, and shows the Col des Gourgs-Blancs in the upper-centre. From there we descended left, then climbed towards the top left of the photo. The frozen lake is rather imaginatively called Lac Glacé. The fourth photo is Klaas and me on the summit.
From there we dropped down just over 300m to Refuge du Portillon, which may just be the best refuge yet. We’ve had two huge meals, warm showers, a couple of games of chess (turns out Klaas is a Grand Master) and have been able to recharge phones and cameras.
For a while it looked like we were the only guests, but then some crazy Polish students arrived - having hitch-hiked from Poland they attempted the same route we’ve done today, only without crampons or ice-axes! One of them had slipped but miraculously not hit any rocks, and the other two had ended up throwing their bags down the hill so they could rock-climb down to avoid the snow! Nutters…
The food here has been great, and I’ve tried to eat as much as possible, but my stomach just isn’t used to massive second helpings at the moment. Getting enough calories is really difficult, especially when we’re cooking for ourselves, so I’m making a big effort to eat everything I can in restaurants and refuges, especially when there’s butter or other fat available. Despite this I reckon I’ve lost betwen five and ten kilos so far.