The Long March

On Skis Across the Alps

Seven a.m on La Haute Route. Skis strapped firmly on backpacks, our group shuffles in boots up the Col du Chardonnet from the Argentière glacier. The summit, which is 623 metres vertical, will be reached in about 4 ½ hours. We hope. Some of us wonder why we traded our warm, comfy pension in Chamonix for a route march across the snow. Gilles, one of our French leaders, assures us things will get better. We do not believe him.

A trim French lady, on skis, glides past as though we are stationery. She wears a parachute-style harness, apparently invaluable when being pulled out of a crevasse. She jingles with carabiners, ice screws, crampons and an ice axe, overtaking us with the ease of a professional.  It is apparent she knows we are not. She also reminds us, as we soldier on, that inadequacy is not one of life’s joys.

This is a holiday?

Certainment. We’ve paid our francs to the guides and we are on the famed La Haute Route – the ‘LHR’ - a seven-day, 100-kilometre, as–the-crow-flies trudge across the Alps on skis from Chamonix, France, to Zermatt, Switzerland with a corner of Italy thrown as zabaglione. It combines ascents and descents over 11 glaciers at an average altitude of about 3500 metres (Whistler’s summit is 2240m.) so it’s impossible to know how far we had to slog. 

This is ski touring, French style: la randonnée. It’s an Alpine/Nordic hybrid with downhill boots and skis, the latter being slightly shorter and wider; today, morphed into the standard parabolic configuration. The binding clamps the heel down for a descent and unclips into a hinge position allowing it to lift on the ascent and the flat as the skier moves the ski forward, parallel to each other, much like walking, or marching. 

La randonnée is not lift-assisted downhill skiing nor is it back-country telemarking, particularly popular in North America. Both techniques meld the exhilaration of downhill runs with the wilderness serenity of back-country skiing. By the time the LHR march was all over we estimated we had spent about 85 per cent of our time grunting upwards with the remainder being the lazy abandon of swishing down pristine wilderness. Apparently, there’s more downhill – and less hard work - on the Zermatt to Chamonix routing.

LHR, as one seasoned wag opined, is the ‘motorway’ linking all the shorter traverses from well-known western Alpine villages (Chamonix, Verbier, etc) to eastern counterparts (Zermatt, Cervinia in Italy). Some valleys in the south connect to the LHR (Arolla) with routes interspersed throughout a vast region, boasting a network unmatched in North America; on a map it resembles the London underground. And if the weather is kind, it gets crowded. This is a far cry from the days it was pioneered as a summer hike, skis not arriving in the Alps until the late 19th century.

French guides attempted the first ski traverse of the LHR and today’s classic route opened in 1911 and assumed great popularity after World War II. The Brits accomplished many firsts including Whymper’s 1865 ascent of the Matterhorn (4478 m.), but showed only passing interest in the LHR; their initial ski traverse was completed in the 1930’s. True pioneers, these early ventures in January and February were badly timed: freezing temperatures, unpredictable avalanches, concealed crevasses, high winds, short days. Today’s enthusiasts have it soft : they travel in April, or in May, as we did in 1982.

That said, it’s not a great idea to be too soft. La Compagnie des Guides de Chamonix, an invaluable life-line if you’re not seasoned enough to tackle this overland trek on your own, recommends troops enlist en bonne condition physique.  Also de rigeur is a fair degree of stamina and a dash of Crazy Canuck recklessness. Bottom line requirement: any average skier with basic skills must be able to negotiate the glaciers inconsiderately placed across La Haute Route.

This is a trip travel writers claim will “stretch” you, an utterance made long before the advent of today’s “adventure travel” forays. Our group consisted of one Canadian woman, two Brits, one Swiss, two Frenchmen and one American. Our ages ran from 27 to 60; needless to say, Swiss Senior could out-ski and out-trudge all of us. The French guides limit their group to six participants so as a Group of Seven, we luxuriated with two: Gilles Ravanel (a famous family name in Chamonix climbing circles) and Jean-Marie Olianti, both from La Compagnie.

Apart from Swiss Senior, our platoon was hardly combat hardened. But somehow we summoned the stamina to survive days ranging from four hours to 11. Plus the will to hang in when the going got rough, the body, cold, sweaty and tired. Morale takes a hit too. Variable weather conditions dictate progress, so there is no such thing as a ‘typical day’ on the LHR. Add mixed terrain, at times almost unmanageable snow, and endless traverses and steep ascents with skis on (with skins and ski crampons) and off. There’s the odd rock outcrop and steep, brief descents that require roping up. Unreliable snow-bridges.  Soggy mush. Fluffy powder. Boilerplate “crud” at lower altitudes reminiscent of Whistler on a bad day. Above all – frequently – Mother Nature wrecks the guides’ tightly monitored itinerary.

Take day four: as usual we are up before five am at the Mont-Fort hut. A quick swig of tea, some baguette and jam. Our first ascent, started before dawn, is a two-hour, 465-metre vertical hike up the Col de la Chaux (2940 m.). But even at that obscene hour, it’s hard to be unmoved by the majesty of the Alps. The moon floats among the stars, an immense orange balloon. The air still and silent save for the ‘hiss-hiss thunk’ of skis being propelled forward. In regimental Guards’ fashion, we follow each other in the dark. Ahead the lamps of the guides flicker like fireflies. We long for time to enjoy all this but we’re troops on the move, a strategic destination to reach.

Without warning the wind howls, the accompanying sleet is wet, stinging, blinding. All hell  breaks loose at the summit. Had we arrived 10 minutes earlier, we could have schussed to the next plateau and sheltered before the upward grunt up and across the next glacier. Teeth chatter as numb fingers remove climbing skins. In the shelter of a rock overhang we await orders from Gilles and Jean-Marie: “Back to the hut. The pass is not passable.”

In zero visibility, we return to the Mont-Fort hut. Sipping schnapps at 8:45 a.m. is no solace for the fact had we left those crucial 10 minutes sooner we would now be well on our way. No wonder guides snarl at troops who are less than motivated at five in the morning. I ponder: was I the malingerer?

Reading, a meal or two, beer or a glass of wine, organizing gear, chatting with troops from different units: ‘is the infrastructure of Chamonix superior to Zermatt?’  Answer: it depends on whether you are French or German. A long day and the weather remained uncertain as we turned in around nine p.m. Guides sleep with one eye open and at four a.m. reveille was a none-too-gentle dig in the ribs from our leaders. And so began the Pavlovian assembly of kit, gulped sustenance, brushing teeth in snow. We didn’t want another debacle. Once more up the Col de la Chaux.

A joyful arrival at the summit at seven a.m. More decisions arose from the previous, wasted day: head for the Prafleuri hut where we should have been 24 hours earlier; or cover two days’ territory in one and arrive on schedule at the Cabane des Dix? No surprises when Gilles declared we were rested enough to do a double march and “stretch” ourselves. The wimps among us were detesting that word.

At eleven hours, this was the longest day of the LHR, enlivened with occasional stretches of powder; a seemingly endless traverse in rapidly rising temperature along Lac des Dix, avalanche locators draped around our necks; and a roped-up scramble down a rock face at the Pas de Chat. A final tiresome ascent (why always up rather than down?) to the Cabane des Dix where in the last hour sleet once again makes the guides jittery. The troops were wearily contemplating the consequences of not reaching anticipated warmth and security. But make it we did, on track for the time being. That first Kronenberg was nectar.

After that long march, spirits lifted as relatively uneventfully we approach our next destination. To remind us that we are still a long way from creature comforts, the last night is spent at the Cabane des Vignettes which nestles suicidally on a sheer rock face. The outdoor privy is accessed by a narrow, icy pathway thoughtfully secured by a single strand of rope strung optimistically along a precipitous drop to rocks several hundred feet below. Regardless of urge, it discourages a late-night tinkle. So hang on until dawn when the sun’s early rays bring an iota of warmth, safer conditions and a view of the surrounding peaks that brings tears to the eye.

The cable car at Zermatt which would whisk us to town over green pastures and grazing cows, was only three passes and nine-hour’s trekking away. Then, almost as if by magic, there’s the Matterhorn, a ‘stately pyramid of stone’ as aptly described by Kev Reynolds, the British alpine writer. Yes, we had been ‘stretched’ enough to complete unscathed, one of the most famous, prized tours in the Alps, if not the world.

The geographical highs and lows of the LHR are matched with comparable variations in experiences encountered by those who embark upon this regime. The nadir was the 11-hour day: except for Swiss Senior, we were all well and truly ‘stretched’. Or sleeping next to a German Wagnerian-built lady who had a snore like a machine gun. Early morning fumbling with a flashlight in frantic attempts to cobble gear together. Blisters. Gilles snarling at our incompetence. Being dumb enough to downhill ski ahead of a guide. Getting to the top of a long glacial grunt, hoping that the hut – and a cold beer - was there, only to find it wasn’t and yet another bloody summit was on the horizon. And tight train schedules in Zermatt which limited hugs and bidding fond farewell to comrades with whom we had suffered so much, but enjoyed immensely.

The highs? Appropriately, it was the highest climbing point of the Pigne D’Arolla (3796 m.) where we skied down without our backpacks. Yelping like exuberant poodles on other high-altitude descents where, albeit briefly, the snow was gossamer. Skiing the Arpette Valley in drizzle, to Champex village for our one and only civilized lunch. At day’s end, the final plodding steps to the hut we were convinced we would never reach but did. Our unwavering confidence in Gilles and Jean-Marie; their incredible competence and patience in dealing with raw recruits. Watching them ski crud as though it were a groomed resort slope; true genius in all terrain, all types of snow, all on skis with battered bindings.

I did ‘encounter” the French lady who intimidated me on my first day on the LHR: she appeared on the cover of Alpinisme et Randonnée, hanging from a vertical rock face by her fingernails.

Perhaps I’ll bump into her at the 2010 Olympics.                        

This article is adapted from its first publication in ‘Travelife”, a Toronto-based travel magazine, October/November, 1982.

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