European Mountains, Italy
Rifugio Vittorio Emanuele, 2735m, Apr 19-20 2008
(Failed attempt on Gran Paradiso, 4061m)
Busy week-end
This is a timeline of the somewhat busy week-end:
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Apr 17 2008 10:48AM |
Apr 17 2008 14:40PM |
Apr 17 2008 16:29AM |
Apr 17 2008 17:37PM |
Apr 17 2008 18:51PM |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Apr 18 2008 06:38AM |
Apr 18 2008, 13:50PM |
Apr 18 2008 18:30PM |
Apr 19 2008 11:02AM |
Apr 19 2008 14:55PM |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Apr 19 2008 17:09PM Descending Gran Paradiso |
Apr 19 2008, 19:21PM Courmayeur, Italy. Mt. Blanc massif ahead |
Apr 20 2008 07:54AM Geneva - Amsterdam flight. Above Brussels. |
Apr 20 2008 15:31PM Bergen - Ålesund flight. Passing Ørsta peaks |
Apr 20 2008 16:50PM Storhornet on Godøya (497m). A "detour" from the airport. |
Gran Paradiso; the project, sickness & altitude issues
A couple of weeks ago, my friend Petter sent out an inviation to join in on his trip Gran Paradiso in the Graian alps, Italy. I signed up immediately, fairly confident about the project: We would park the car at 1600m (actually it was almost 2000m, but we had got it wrong at the time), walk/ski up to Refuge Vittorio Emanuele (2735m), spend the night there, ski Gran Paradiso in the morning and return to Geneva in the evening. The team ended up being only Petter and myself.
At best, I wouldn't have any altitude problems at 2700m. At worst, I should get sufficient acclimation during the night. Headache on the mountain was to be repaired with proper medication. Decadron was only available if I was willing to pay almost NOK 1000,-. An outrageous price, and I ended up with Prednisolone instead.
So the project seemed quite doable. My physical condition was however an open question. Normally, the vertical distance up to Gran Paradiso wouldn't have been a topic at all. But I had been (far) down with a nasty virus (symptoms of post-infectious fatigue) for a couple of weeks.
Gran Paradiso (picture of a picture)
(Click for larger image)
A few days before departure, Petter got a bad cold. But as Petter only sees opportunities and never problems, he was quite confident about a rising curve. On top of everything, my back was giving me strong headaches, and the day before the departure I was totally out. Flat out on the floor! I called half a dozen physiotherapists and claimed emergency. A few laughed (apparently, getting an appointment within a month is impossible), while some had the courtesy to just say no, sorry.
But I got lucky in the end; an osteopath had an open slot on this Wednesday afternoon. Just getting there was a big effort. I imagined Gran Paradiso would be a walk in the park in comparison. If I ever got there, that is. Terje - the osteopath - was the man of the day. He cracked me up and figured I would be in shape for Italy. The rest of the day was dedicated to painkillers and rest. 20:00PM in the evening, the headache finally let go. And I could begin to pack for Italy...
To the Pont trail head
Aiguille du Midi, Chamonix
|
My plane left Ålesund 14:25PM on Thursday afternoon. I
flew to Oslo and then to Bergen, where Petter had prepared a
forest research project. Our plane for
Amsterdam left Bergen 06:05AM on Friday morning, and if I can avoid ever
taking this KLM morning flight again, I'll be glad. What a mess! We continued towards Geneva,
where we picked up a rental car.
Morale was good. My head was OK, my back was OK and the virus seemed to have left the body. Petter, still with a cold, reported a rising health curve. And the weather was supposed to be good on Saturday. But only on Saturday. Petter had in advance informed the Rifugio that we would arrive
around 19:00PM, in time for dinner. We were sort of on schedule, but
as we hadn't eaten anything all day, we would need to make a brief stop.
In Courmayeur (Italy), I ran into a small pizzeria and negotiated a
solid lunch-box of all-sort pizzas to go. The guy didn't understand English
and I didn't understand Italian. Nevertheless, we understood each other
completely. After all, we're in Italy.. |
| In the Valle d'Aosta region, we tried to use Google's
driving instructions to find the valley leading to the Pont trail head,
but this approach didn't bring us any success. A better method was
pulling down the window and shout Pont? to passing
pedestrians, and see which way they pointed. Eventually, we made it to Pont, approx. 1970m. There was light snow in the air. Given the fact that we were driving a small car with summer tires, I made a silent wish for the snow to stop falling. The good news were that it seemed we could ski already from the car, and at 16:15PM, we were on our way up the mountain. |
Pont @ Google maps
|
| Rifugio Vittorio
Emanuele, 2735m After skiing only 100m, it was evident that my body was not in a good condition. And after skiing 1,4Km, the skis had to come off. Our route ahead was steep and there was hardly any snow left on the trail. With the skis, I was now carrying approx. 20Kg, and my back was aching. Petter volunteered to take on some more of the load, and I handed over the rope and my crampons. I had to swallow a lot of pride to go along with that. By now, I was a little concerned. Had I reverse engineered the good work done by the osteopath? If yes, the rest of the stay would be a complete nightmare. On top of this, breathing was a struggle. Once we
passed 2400m, the headache set in. I didn't know if this was caused by
my back or the altitude. In any case, my morale was rock bottom at this
point. |
Rifugio Vittorio Emanuele
|
|
|
The snowfall was still
light, but the wind was picking up. At times, it would be accurate to
call it bad weather. But I didn't mind the least. The (strong)
wind gave me extra oxygen (at least that's how I wanted to see it)
and the whipping snow took some of the focus away from the headache. At
best, I was able to walk for a whole minute, before having to rest
almost equally long.
This isn't me, I thought to myself. I was thinking back on the trip to Mt. Blanc, and couldn't recall any problems in getting up to our camp at 3900m. And we were carrying even more gear then. Visbility got gradually worse, and on top of the switchbacks, we lost sight of the ski tracks we had followed a while. We didn't have a map, no hut waypoint, no tracks and very low visibility. With darkness 1-1,5 hours ahead, we better had to find the hut. Then suddenly, the Rifugio was just ahead of us. The time was 18:55PM when we arrived. The timing wasn't bad at all. For some reason, Petter chose not to go in the main entrance, and the staff seemed a bit surprised when we came stumbling through the kitchen. And the staff was in the middle of serving dinner... After a nice 3-course meal, I went to bed. There were less than 20 skiers in the hut, so we got a whole room for ourselves. Luxury! I paid the medicine bag an aggressive visit, then went into what I like to call incapacitating mode. It would last 14 hours. Talk about being good company! |
Saturday, Apr 19 2008.
After the longest night I can recall (I didn't sleep much), Petter reported that the weather didn't match the weather forecast. It was snowing down by the hut, but some blue sky could be seen above. Petter decided that he should at least go for a ski-trip. If the weather got better, he would continue. I was in no condition to even get up, so I wished him a safe journey. He left just after 08:00AM.
I had still not a very clear
idea whether it was my back or the altitude that caused this headache. I would
just have to wait and see. 11:00AM, things were looking up, as the headache was
clearly fading. After a while, I decided to get up and have a look at the hut
and the views. The weather was simply gorgeous, and it was uplifting to know
that Petter stood a very good chance of reaching the top.
| A short ski-trip 14:36PM, I was rather fed up by doing nothing, and as my physical condition was simply outstanding, I decided to go for a short ski-trip up the valley. I almost expected to run into Petter on his way down. Being acclimated, and without a heavy backpack, it felt good to be moving again. I decided to ski up to 3000m, unless I ran into Petter. 15:16PM, my elevation was 3030m, and I looked forward to Telemark back to the hut. Petter didn't show up until 16:30PM. He had reached the highest point on Gran Paradiso, so at least the expedition had become a success. It had been a struggle, he told me. At times, the snow was knee-deep, but fortunately, he didn't have to break the trail. Descent After checking out from the Rifugio, we began our descent just before 17:00PM. Even if check-out was at 14:00PM, the hut manager didn't charge us any extra. The entire crew were hospitable and friendly, and even if I don't particularly enjoy staying on mountain cabins, I have only good things to say about this cabin and the staff. The descent was fun. At least for me, having quite short skis. I heard Petter announce that he looked forward to walking on the trail. A lot of skiers were on the way upwards, which, given the poor weather forecast, was a bit surprising. Perhaps the forecast had changed during our stay, but it looked as if a snowfall could be moving in during the afternoon. 18:30PM, we were back at Pont. Next stop was a hotel near the Geneva airport. We stopped in Courmayeur (again) for a nice dinner. It was dark by the time we got to Geneva, and locating the hotel as well as a gas station wasn't trivial. |
1000m below Gran Paradiso
Descending from the Rifugio
|
Flying home
Our plane for Amsterdam left 06:55AM the next morning. After saying goodbye to Petter in Bergen, I continued towards Ålesund on the 14:55PM flight. I was quite happy after having secured another nice batch of aerial pictures. Apologies go out to my fellow passengers who had to endure the 260 camera clicks on this flight.
The weather in Ålesund was just great, and I decided to pay a visit to Storhornet (497m) on Godøya. Just to see if the acclimation was still present. It seemed to be. It took only me 27 minutes to walk the 450 vertical meters to the top. Weird sounds came out of my chest, but I never got tired. In retrospect, I wish I hadn't done this walk, because the post-infectious fatigue was back again the next day.
But all in all, it was all worth it. It's been a while since I went abroad, and every altitude lesson is a valuable lesson. And as always, Petter's projects become memorable projects. So many thanks to Petter for this one. Perhaps I'll return to this mountain some day. It would have been nice to be on top of it.
|
For information on how to get to Gran Paradiso, please visit Petter's Gran Paradiso page. |
