Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
CHAPTER 8
ALADDIN SANE
Alex is not used to early starts. In fact, this will be his first ever early-morning
start. I wake him at two, shaking him when he rolls over and tells me to go away.
Everyone else is still asleep.
'What the hell? Why do we need to go this early?'
'Because we have miles to go before we sleep.'
Alex crawls out from beneath his blankets, fully dressed apart from his breeches
and boots. He thrashes around looking for an extra sock he'd brought to pad out
his badly fitting left boot.
'Come on kid. It's miles back to Chamonix and we've got some mountains to get
I am. He tells me to stop hassling, that he is doing his best and calls me 'an old wo-
man'. That I am not.
We drink coffee from a flask left by the warden. Alex has what seems to me a dis-
gusting habit of consuming condensed milk straight from the tube. Its gooey
sweetness does seem to fire him up. His first big peak awaits. Switching on
headtorches, we tramp across the wooden porch, no doubt waking everyone else,
before the soft thump of our boots is swallowed by the icy mountain night.
The walk up onto the glacier to the base of the peak is confusing. The heavens are
pierced by the jagged black outlines of the Aiguilles. They eat up the stars as we ap-
proach, rearing up above us as we put on crampons and rope up. There is harmony
in our progress, measured by the reassuring squeal of crampons biting into snow
as we work our way into the Fou couloir. The first red light of dawn stretches
across the Aiguilles as the stars fade.
'Shit. It's too dark to be absolutely sure, but I think it must be about over here the
route starts. Let's get the gear out and by then we will probably see enough to tell.'
It is the right place. I can now see the line of the chimney that splits the face. But
the glacier has drawn back from the base; the first pitch up an exposed slab is des-
perate and without protection. Alex follows with freezing fingers. I hand him the
rack to continue up the first true pitch of the route, which looks straightforward.
He climbs up to the first bulge.
'I'm too cold and this is too hard.'
'Go on, you'll be fine.'
