But we were
persistent. ‘Training for an Antarctic Expedition’ we
announced grandly and a pisteur called Béatrice (or should
that be ‘pisteuse’?) pricked up her ears. ‘Ah,’ she
sighed wistfully, ‘I always dreamed of going to
Antarctica. Wait a moment.’ She disappeared to find the
boss. Five minutes later she returned with a big grin
and raised thumbs, and soon we were hefting our
monstrous beast onto the cable car.
We got out at the Lognan, dragged the beast out of
the station, and got harnessed, trying to look cool and
rugged amongst the crowd of Saturday skiers. Then we
were off, taking turns in the harness. At one stage it
took five of us to heave the beast through a steep patch
of rutted snow.
We camped that night on the Argentiere Glacier.
Gorgeous sunset. Tolerable ‘boil-in-the-bag’ meal.
Excellent Sloe Vodka, provided by Lyster Denny. Blissful
sleep in much-praised Mountain Equipment Sleepwalker
bags.
Sunday was spent skinning up to the Améthystes
Glacier, practising avalanche drill, and skiing down on
hideous breakable crust, before settling into a gentler
trundle back down the Argentiere Glacier.
Fine blizzard that night. Only about 40% on the South
Georgia blizzing scale, but still quite noisy and a good
dry run for the Terra Nova tents, which barely noticed
what was happening.
The barometer was dropping steadily and by Monday
morning we had low cloud and snowfall. Grandiose ideas
about skiing the Three Cols were dropped in favour of
crevasse rescue practice. First we rigged a pulley
system to winch our heaviest team member out of a slot.
Then everyone had a go at prussiking – basically a
system of self-rescue. My six prussiking virgins all
rose to the challenge. Then back to camp to pack up
tents, load up the beast and head back down. Lyster did
a brilliant job as lead skier. The rest of us took turns
– with varying success – at skiing behind, in brake
position.
It was still snowing when we left for Geneva the next
morning.
pulk
|
]
