After a long week’s work there is nothing nicer than receiving a broadcast e-mail from Sam-wise declaring that a hut hike should be had.
Despite many on the e-mail thread dropping out at the thought of it, Sam insisted that we stay overnight in the hut rather than return on the same day we start. This meant that the weak-willed were whittled away and we were left with a whiley crew: myself (Danny), Sam-wise, Babette, Josh, and Jordan.
We head out Saturday morning for the end of the Chamonix valley where the 1000+ meter uphill trek would start in the village of La Tour. Thankfully Babette suggested she drive given that her car was bigger (and also I have not got around to re-insuring my car for the past month).
We were sure to make a stop at the greatest Carrefour of all, the one that sits just off the side of the road as you enter the town of Chamonix and just beside what else other than a ski jump left over from winter olympics past. We picked up plenty of items for lunch and dinner, a couple of bottles of wine, and a small flask-sized bottle of whiskey. We were sure that we bought much more than what was possible to eat and given past experience this was surely the case.
Not so long after, we began our hike to the refuge, Refuge Albert 1er, from the
small village of La Tour with cows jingling their bells beneath the still ski-lifts
and chewing the grass that would soon be covered with snow and skiers and a dragging
lift that
The lunch spot views (seen at the top of this post) are incredible, being at the end of Chamonix valley they offer some of the best views for looking down its length with Mont Blanc in plain view. What’s more is that we were lunching with the exact same lunch spot views that Claire and I had along with fellow Heidelberg colleagues (Busty) 7 months prior in the height of snowboard season:
Needless to say the dual-views made this an even more pleasant hike to be had.
For lunch: a sandwich of bresaola slices, one of my new favorite cheeses, brought by Babette, appenzeller, raisins/cranberries from my trail-mix bag, a few potato chips mainly for the crunch, all between poppy-seed baguette. Enjoyed on the side with some 90% Lindt (Carrefour was out of the real stuff) and a dash of the William peel whiskey for the warmth as the cold winds were picking up now that we were higher up in this valley’s end.
A few hours later and we made it to the winter room of the refuge. One of the nicest winter rooms I’ve seen so far, complete with two floors with the second composed of two rooms of beds, enough wood-stock for a year, a furnace for melting snow into water and drying socks & boots, and a signatory book to make sure the hut owners know who they have to go dig out of the ice the next time they’re there.
After going out on the Glacier du Tour to collect more water we came back to the hut where other climbers had begun to gather for the evening. Sam-wise, the fire-boss, started a fire in the furnace and soon after as the hut began to warm and evening to set we started dinner while the other climbers made their out-and-backs in the dark with their headlamps down to the glacier collecing snow to melt for water.
We had pasta (torti) boiled up in Sam’s jet-boil topped with a sauce of tuna, sliced carrot, sliced red bell pepper, and pesto sauce along with some wine (the first bottle would soon become the candle-stick holder for Babette’s candle). As if we had not eaten enough, we broke out the entire chicken (rotisserie) that we bought (and carried up a mountain) and began to cut it up and devour. The other 8 or so people in the hut, all preparing for treacherous ice-climbs further up the mountain in the early hours of the morning, were surely jealous (or disgusted/confused?) at our carefree dinner, card game playing, and merriment.
6/6 for going to huts and being the only group not climbing further up the mountain. Maybe one of these days that will change, but it’s pretty good times as it is I’d say.
