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Snow

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The past two weeks have been complete contrasts. This time last week we were preparing for the onslaught of climbers that were to make our first full-house of the season. We ultimately had all our beds full and one person (arrival with no reservation) sleeping on the floor. Everyone had half-pension so we were lucky to have the new benches and tables which gave us enough room to serve all twenty-five people in one seating. We had two internationally known guides last Saturday, too, which made the climbing easy for everyone (people just let the guide find the route and follow him). The whole week before was nonstop; which is why I didn’t get a chance to write. We had reservations for fifteen-or-so every night plus the unannounced arrivals from above to keep us up most of the night. Plus, three breakfasts every morning: 1:30am, 4:00am and 8:00am and a slew of day visitors wanting lunch.

But at the beginning of this week the weather forecasts predicted a steady en-worsening of atmospheric conditions. Because, to potential climbers, the forecast is more important than the actual weather, from Monday on our reservation book was blank. Wednesday was forecast bad but turned out to be an incredible day. Some friends came up to talk about filling in for us for a couple of days next year. Luci finally decided to bite the bullet and make a trip down to the valley to get the supplementary x-rays that our Antarctic employer was requesting. A couple of weeks ago, the radio-tech for the alpine rescue was up here and mentioned that they were planning on making an upgrade to our emergency radio. The battery doesn’t hold enough charge for it to be left on at all times so they are planning to retrofit it with a larger panel and battery bank which would require the use of the rescue helicopter to bring up the materials. On the off-chance that they might fly up on Thursday, when she had the dentist appointment in Aosta, Luci decided to give him a call to see if she could hitch a ride down and up again with the helicopter. As it turns out, they were planning on flying up on Thursday and said it would be OK for Luci to hitch a ride.

So after our friends left on Wednesday Luci began preparing for her descent into the valley the next morning. At about 4:30 in the afternoon we got a call from the tech saying there had been a last-minute change of plans. The helicopter was going to be occupied with a hospital transfer the next morning and the works would have to be postponed until the next week. Luci was upset because she doesn’t like to hike down. But, we really had everything going for us; she already had the appointment, the weather was good at the moment and we had no reservations until Saturday. So, we made the split second decision to hike down together to the valley. We locked up the kitchen and the basement and started down at about 5:20. By 7:30 we were dining on filet and poached trout sipping fine wine.

The idea was to hike back up Thursday afternoon after the appointment and the weather looked like it would cooperate. After raining all night, it had cleared up in most of Valle d’Aosta. But, by the time we got back up to the Mt. Blanc area, where Boccalatte is, it was obvious that it had not cleared up there. In fact, we could see during a break in the clouds that the bad weather had laid down a considerable amount of snow around the hut. Because it was likely that there was still no one at the hut, and on account of the continuing bad weather we decided to stay another night in the valley. We got a hotel room and watched the European diving championships.

Despite an improved forecast, the weather was worse on Friday morning and we could see that a lot more snow had fallen up high on the range. By now we had put off our ascent too long so we donned our rain gear and started up. It was drizzly up to about 2000m (c. 6200ft.) when it turned to snow. When we got to about 7500ft, the snow was about three inches deep and the trail was becoming difficult to follow. By the time we climbed up the ropes and got to the hut at just shy of 10,000ft there was between six and eight inches on the porch and the hut was empty as we expected. Even though the hiking conditions were not anywhere near optimal, Luci still managed to shave a good half-hour off her personal ascent record.

It snowed lightly all night and we awoke to another three inches this morning. This Saturday, instead of preparing for the hordes, I had to shovel a foot of snow off the porch and walkways. All but six people have canceled for tonight. We don’t hold out much hope of them arriving, though. If there is a foot of snow here it means there could be at least twice that much on the climb making for bad avalanche conditions and difficult walking. Looks like winter has begun on the Mont Blanc.



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