Hut Check
Monday, June 7th, 2004.JPG )
The drive over Passo Grand Sant Bernardo was nice. It was cloudy on the swiss side but when we crossed over to the Italian side it was beautiful. The crossing is over 2400m so there were walls of snow up to 3m high on either side of the road in places. We had the FIAT Punto convertable so we put the top down and cranked the heat.
When we arrived in Val Ferret, where the trailhead to the hut is, we were behind schedule but the weather was still holding out. The hike up was great. There wasn’t as much snow as we had expect but there we still some pretty hairy traverses. We forgot to adjust Jesse’s crampons before we left the valley and we didn’t have the tools with us. So I lead and kicked steps for him.
By the time we arrived at the hut the weather had changed. It began to snow lightly though we could see that in the valley it was still sunny (typical for the Alps). There was much less damage than in past years bu there is still 6 feet of snow on the roof which is bound to break off and slide onto the porch as the temperatures rise. We though about shoveling it off but didn’t want to risk getting swept off into the glacier. So we cranked the heater and holed up inside.
The next moring was freezing but we had a beautiful sunrise. Since I took the gutter down for the winter, the meltwater from the roof drips off onto the porch forming a glaze of ice. We spent the morning tuning up the PV system, repairing the sewer pipe and shoveling out the NW wall of the hut. We began the hike down around 11am after the ice the formed overnight melted.
Now we are off to Venice to spend the last two days pof Jesse’s stay.
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