Reflecting on rapidly changing glaciers in the Alps
Summer in the Alps went from being inexistent to full blast. It’s the hottest month of August in years. I am grateful for this spell of beautiful weather myself, but after this past few days in the mountains, I realize that glaciers aren’t as happy as me. They are downright hurting.
I just had an amazing week with my client, Michele. Michele is a well-rounded climber who goes out climbing on her own (as in, without a guide), both on rock and ice and has climbed all over the world. She’s been to destinations I still dream about going to myself. After a week of hiking to acclimate around Chamonix, she was ready for our trip into the mountains. Since I hadn’t climbed with her before, we headed to the Albert 1er hut the first day to climb a moderate ridge to the summit of the Aiguille du Tour, a peak which sits on the border to France and Switzerland. Upon reaching the hut, though, I wondered where the glacier had gone. The last time I’d been there was in 2002, and the glacier was minutes from the hut. I blamed it on my bad recollection of the area but a fellow guide confirmed that the glacier had just shrunk drastically.
After a beautiful climb up the Arête de la Table (called as such because a flat rock somehow sits on the ridge and you have to climb around and then on top of it) to the summit of the Aiguille du Tour, we returned to Chamonix. We spent the following days climbing perfect granite on the Aiguille du Peigne’s Papillons Ridge and ice on the Goulotte Chéré followed by the classic Cosmiques Ridge. We then headed over to Switzerland to spend three days climbing around the Trient Hut, located on the Swiss side of the Mont Blanc Range. Although I had hiked up to that hut earlier this summer, it was still early and the snow hadn’t fully melted off so I wasn’t as shocked as now.
I first came to this area in 1996 with my parents to climb a route right above the glacier. We had stayed at the Orny Hut, just an hour down valley form the Trient Hut. From there, we hiked a few minutes to reach the nearby glacier and hiked on it to reach the climb. Nowadays, you couldn’t even imagine doing that. The glacier is 150m below the hut and nowhere on the way to that climb anymore. Five years ago, the glacier in that area was still fully an accumulation zone, but now, it’s turned to an ablation zone, leaving very little time for this glacier to survive.
After a nice night of sleep at the newly guarded Trient hut with Michele, and the most amazing vegetable curry cinnamon (yes, cinnamon) soup I have ever eaten, we headed out the door at 5 a.m. for our climb, the south ridge of the Aiguille Sans Nom (Nameless Tower), a beautiful line up perfect orange granite. This area is a little remote and both times I was back there this summer, I didn’t see anyone! A treat! We hiked up the Trient glacier to the Col des Plines and headed down into a wind scoop to come out at the pass. I expected the backside to be fully covered in snow, as it had been when I was there five years earlier. But instead we found scree and very loose terrain, leading to a totally dry glacier. I couldn’t believe it. Poor Michele, she had to listen to me repeat over and over how different it was this time around, just like an old woman saying: “Back in the days…”
It didn’t stop us from having an amazing climb up perfect granite to the summit of the Aiguille Sans Nom, followed by some ridge climbing down the easterly ridge of the Aiguilles Dorées (Golden Needles) and some rappels back to the Trient glacier. We had an amazing week with great weather and I was in great company with Michele. Yet, I can’t brush off the images of the once-huge glacier that I knew and wonder how much longer it will be around for us to see and marvel at. We used to look at pictures from the 1920s to see how much glaciers had shrunk. But now you just need five years time to no longer recognize a location you thought you knew. I don’t have a solution, of course, but this was a reality check I thought I should share.
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Why Climbers – not the climb or the guide – make a great climb
More often than not, what makes my day as a guide or as a climber is not as much the climb as it is the people I guide or climb with. Guiding the Aiguille d’Argentière—a 3,902-meter high peak above the Argentière Glacier in Chamonix—was no exception to the rule. After canceling three days of guiding due to bad weather, I took on some random work with local guide services to make up for lost work. You never know who you are going to have as clients when you work for other companies, so I didn’t know if I should be excited or not about this climb, but I had low expectations because I didn’t have a personal relationship with them and felt that I couldn’t disappoint. If anything, I would get to summit a peak I had not yet stood on. I had tried to ski it the day I returned from Jordan this past March, but the snowpack hadn’t settled enough and we turned around at the base of the steep slope.
The clients were a Swiss couple in their 50s with some climbing experience. I met them at the base of the cable car and after making sure they had all the necessary gear, we rode up to the top of the Grands Montets cable car. In winter, you would ski down the Glacier du Rognon to the Argentière Glacier before starting up the climb. Hiking down in the summer isn’t nearly as much fun, but the beauty of scenery makes up for it. A few hours later, we were at the Argentière hut. From there, the view stretches to the south to the spectacular north faces of the Verte, Droites, Courtes and Triolet. With all the recent precipitations, the routes up the north faces looked nearly in condition (in the summer, they are usually shedding rocks nonstop). The hut has just been remodeled and it is lovely to stay in such nice places in the mountains. They cooked what could be the best meal I’ve had in a hut: a homemade soup followed by a Moroccan tajine. Yum!
We woke up at 4 a.m. to start on our climb. We followed a faint trail in the dark and made our way through a treacherous boulder field before reaching the disappearing glacier. This glacier is named the “Glacier du Milieu” (Middle Glacier) because it rises steeply between two magnificent and flamboyant jagged rock ridges, both topping out on the summit. The climbing is pretty straightforward, despite a few sections where we had to navigate through a maze of crevasses. After the bergschrund, the slope drastically steepens. We made good use of the cramponing technique we had perfected on the dry glacier the previous day on our way to the hut, and made it safely to the summit. A biting northerly wind greeted us on top: I quickly added my Igniter Jacket to enjoy the beautiful panorama, stretching to the south to Mont Blanc and the Grandes Jorasses and to the north to the Swiss Alps. We soon started back down. Descending steep slopes is where you are the most at risk, so we took our time, making sure each of our steps was secure.
Once the difficulties were over we were able to talk a lot more. The clients—both doctors—told me about where they live, their passion for the mountains, for nature and for the environment (having even built a fully environmentally efficient house), about their kids (their daughter is a Swiss champion rock climber for under-16-year-olds) and much more. After what has been a bit of a difficult summer with the weather, meeting such great clients (and having nice weather) really brought home why I was guiding and why I love to guide. I sometimes feel that clients can bring more to the guide than the guide can bring to them by taking them to a summit. Clients always bring a lot to the plate, but this time, maybe because I had low expectations, there was room for me to let myself be surprised. And this was definitely one of these special times when clients made my day.
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Dealing with feisty weather in the Alps
One thing I love about my job is this: It sure keeps you on your toes…both figuratively and literally, of course. But this year has been more on the figurative side of things.
Europe has been hit by a southwesterly flow of weather that even the best forecasters have had a hard time understanding and interpreting. Since guiding is very weather dependent, it has made my job quite difficult…but all the more interesting.
Clients email me way ahead of time to book me for their dream climbs or their dream week in the Alps. And it really means the world to me to do my best at making them discover my backyard, in the hope that they will love it as much I do, that they will enjoy the climbing and get to reach their dream summit. For this to happen, though, three factors must be met: The client must be in good enough shape to achieve their goal; the conditions on the route must be good; and the weather must be decent. Last summer, this was hardly ever an issue. Sure, there were times when I had to rack my brains a little in order to find a better destination than the one originally planned, but it was the exception to the rule and there was always a great alternative to be found. This year, however, I can’t recall many days going according to plan.
Guiding can be intense in itself, because you have to plan for the climb, figure out what the itinerary is going to be, book huts and hotels and cable cars (a perk, really!), make sure conditions are good on the route, brief clients on what to expect on the climb, what gear to take, make sure they have the gear they need and that they are using it right, make sure you have the right gear to guide a climb, pack your bag, manage clients on the climb, acknowledge hazards and manage them, come home at night and repeat for the following day. But this year’s unstable weather has added a whole new level of stress.
At the end of July, I had a great client to climb both the Mittellegi Ridge on the Eiger and the Hörnli ridge on the Matterhorn. I met him the day before the trip started with the weather outlook in hand and had to break the news to him that none of these climbs would happen. That’s always really hard for me to do because people have traveled from far away for this, took time off work and away from their family, all to do “Plan B” climbs. But weather and conditions are something that I can’t manage and that’s a responsibility I always have a hard time not taking on as my own. So I try to find other satisfying options, but this summer, the weather forecast would drastically change from the one posted in the morning to the one posted in the evening, forcing me to constantly change plans and adapt. This was stressful but we almost always made it work.
This past weekend, however, the forecast was for three days of beautiful weather initially—and ended up being the worst three days of the summer throughout the Alps. Even further south, where the weather was nicer, the winds reached up to 50 mph at lower elevations. So we resorted to going to the museum and eating ice cream. Sometimes you just have to accept the reality and not try to force things. And I think clients are understanding of that, but I always wish I could have done more and found where the one patch of dry weather was hiding and made it work.
As I write this, the sun is blasting through my window and I am about to head on up to a hut for the first bluebird day of guiding in a long time! This spell of bad weather makes me appreciate the sun and beauty of the mountains all the more. It will be such a nice change to be able to focus on my job and on the clients, and not worry about the weather.
Weissmiess Traverse
The Weissmies is one of the easternmost 4,000-meter peaks in the Alps and is close to the Swiss/Italian border, in the Saastal, opposite from the famous ski resort, Saas-Fee. Because it doesn’t sit right on the main crest of the Alps, it is more sheltered than the peaks in the neighboring valley of Zermatt and often gets better weather. With this year’s spell of bad weather, it’s been my peak of choice for uncertain weather days.
It’s a bit of a drive to get there from Chamonix. You drive over two passes and then up the Rhone valley, going from the French to German speaking part of Switzerland, and eventually up the narrow and windy road to the Saastal, a V-shaped valley dead-ending at the Mattmark dam.
The hike to the hut the first day was really awesome. In Europe, there are lots of lifts to access areas, even in places where you couldn’t imagine a real use for them. Sometimes the lift is just to access a house, a pasture for cows or sheep, a small village or just for leisure. But I am always grateful for them as they save my body from overuse. We parked the car in SaasAlmagell (all the towns in this valley start with the word “Saas”) and took a small lift up to a tiny hamlet in the mountains. From there, the paths winds through a steep cliff, over manmade bridges, metal steps bolted onto the rock and onward to the Almageller Valley. It is such a contrast from the States, where no manmade structure is allowed in parks or in the mountains. Here, everything is made to be playful, yet it doesn’t seem to really interfere with nature. It’s discreet and not shocking at all.
It takes about three to four hours to hike to the Almageller Hut, with a little break halfway at Almageller Alp—a little restaurant in the middle of nowhere—for a nice, refreshing drink before starting up the steep section the hut. You can only see the hut once you’re 10 minutes away from it. This hut has to be the most beautiful I have ever been to, with a huge terrasse, beautiful stairs, a stream that runs along it, a kitchen that is so polished you can see your reflection in the metal cabinets, beds with nice comforters, all you can eat homemade delicious meals, etc. It’s a real haven and it’s no wonder it’s so popular.
In the morning, we follow red-and-white painted signs on the rocks all the way to a pass before starting up the ridge leading to the summit of the Weissmies. The peak offers a great diversity of rock scrambling and beautiful, thin, snow ridges. I had never done this traverse until this year and almost didn’t get to finish the first time. Pretty high up on the climb, I missed a step and hit my shin hard on the rock. I didn’t want to cry so I just rubbed really hard on my shin to make the pain of what I thought was a bruise go away. When my client asked if I was bleeding, I lifted my pants and realized that not only was it an open wound, I could also see the bone. I breathed hard and with the help of other climbers on the climb, dressed the wound nicely and kept going to the summit, which was only another hour away. I knew that I would be getting stitches within the next few hours. So long as I was moving, I was fine, but when I stopped, the pain came crashing down on me. I was relieved to finally get anesthetics for the stitches and forget about the pain. I wasn’t able to guide for the rest of the week.
A week later though, I was back on that same peak with another client and had a flawless ascent. The descent goes down the north face back to the Hohsaas lift, which in turn takes you back down to the valley floor, giving your knees a few more years to live!
Because of its location, the fun and beautiful approach, the lovely and welcoming hut, the beauty of the ascent and of the peak itself and the lifts taking you down once you’ve descended the north face, the Weissmies is one of my favorite moderate 4,000-meter destinations.
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Caroline on Why she guides
In 1997, I had a nasty accident in the mountains. I fell 1,200 feet down a mountain and spent two months flat on my back in a hospital, staring at the ceiling and thinking that if only I’d had more knowledge of the mountains and how to recognize and manage hazards, I possibly wouldn’t be all broken. Although I’d enjoyed the mountains until then, a furious passion for them ensued from my fall. I knew then that I would become a guide.
Yet, becoming a guide – and a woman guide at that – isn’t an easy road. You have to want it, to live it, to have it so deeply ingrained in your blood that it becomes the essence of your life. Maybe for some it doesn’t have to be quite so extreme, but it did for me.
I didn’t know many people who could take me and teach me. So I decided to follow the motto: “If you don’t know it, teach it” and took my friend Floriane with me all over the mountains. I had no idea how to do things, and I often covered my lack of skills by blaming her for doing things wrong. She was a good sport, and with her I learned a lot through my mistakes and our successes. I climbed mountains like there was no tomorrow, going 10 to 20 days without a break, in all sorts of weather and conditions. I recorded my every climb in a diary, writing in the time it took me, with whom I had done the climb, how hard the climb was, and with ski touring, I kept track of every vertical foot I climbed each winter. It was a religion. I would drive cross-country to do a climb, not counting the time it took or money it cost. Nothing else mattered; it was as vital to me as eating and drinking. My parents were worried.
I filled out the guide course application with a shaking hand. It is scary to get close to your dreams. I wanted this so badly that I didn’t listen when I was told that I had to work on my steep skiing skills. From my accident in 1997, I experienced a great fear of falling down a steep slope. I just pushed on.
During that time, I experienced a very tragic loss and a turning point in my life. I didn’t know if I should pursue guiding. I was simultaneously doing my internship to become a lawyer and hated it. But I realized I had to pursue my passion. So instead of quitting the guide courses, I quit law, and this course became my reason to live.
Dealing with weather in the Alps
One thing I love about my job is this: it sure keeps you on your toes… both figuratively and literally, of course. But this year has been more on the figurative side of things.
Europe has been hit by a southwesterly flow of weather that even the best forecaster have had a hard time understanding and interpreting. Since guiding is very weather dependent, it has made my job quite difficult…. but all the more interesting.
Clients email me way ahead of time to book me (link to: www.intothemountains.com<https://www.intothemountains.com>) for their dream climbs or their dream week in the Alps. And it really means the world to me to do my best at making them discover my backyard, in the hope that they will love it as much I do, that they will enjoy the climbing and get to reach their dream summit. For this to happen though, three factors must be met: the client must be in good enough shape to achieve their goal, the conditions on the route must be good and the weather must be decent. Last summer, this was hardly ever an issue. Sure, there were times when I had to wreck my brains a little in order to find a better destination than the one originally planned, but it was the exception to the rule and there was always a great alternative to be found. This year however, I can’t recall many days going according to plan.
Guiding can be intense in itself, because you have to plan for the climb, figure out what the itinerary is going to be, book huts and hotels and cable cars (a perk really!), make sure conditions are good on the route, brief clients on what to expect on the climb, what gear to take, make sure they have the gear they need and that they are using it right, make sure you have the right gear to guide a climb, pack your bag, manage clients on the climb, acknowledge hazards and manage them, come home at night and repeat for the following day. But this year’s unstable weather has added a whole new level of stress.
At the end of July, I had a great client to climb both the Mitteleggi ridge on the Eiger and the Hornli ridge on theMatterhorn. I met him the day before the trip started with the weather outlook in hand and had to break the news to him that none of these climbs would happen. That’s always really hard for me to do because people have travelled from far away for this, took time off work and away from their family, all that do “Plan B” climbs. But weather and conditions are something that I can’t manage and that’s a responsibility I always have a hard time not taking on as my own. So I try to find other satisfying options, but this summer, the weather forecast would drastically change from the one posted in the morning to the one posted in the evening, forcing me to constantly change plans and adapt. This was stressful but we almost always made it work.
This past week-end however, the forecast was for three days of beautiful weather initially, and ended up into the worst three days of the summer, throughout the Alps. Even further south, where the weather was nicer, the winds reached up to 50mph at lower elevations. So, we resorted to going to the museum and eating ice cream. Sometimes, you just have to accept the reality and not try to force things. And I think clients are understanding of that but I always wish I could have done more and found where the one patch of dry weather was hiding and made it work.
As I write this, the sun is blasting through my window and I am about to head on up to a hut for the first bluebird day of guiding in a long time! This spell of bad weather makes me appreciate the sun and beauty of the mountains all the more. It will be such a nice change to be able to focus on my job and and on the clients, and not worry about the weather.