Days 4 & 5: We saved the Germans!

The last 2 days of our adventure have been giving me some cause for concern for several months. Not without reason: we wanted to hike across the Theodul glacier unguided and once up at the higher reaches of the tour at 3300m there is only one way down - a long, long walk. The weather forecast was not especially encouraging and since it had been generally accurate on earlier days, deserved consideration in the planning. The forecast was for temperatures of -2C in late afternoon and stormy weather. Despite having been told in the Saas Fee guide office that all we need was a good pair of boots I was harbouring a suspicion that this could be another of those nasty little lies designed to put novices in their place.

We cheated a bit and rode a few lifts up in order to ensure that we would not be too late and get caught in the storm while crossing the glacier. As you can see above the dark cloud did descend as we hiked up the 3-4 km glacier crossing and at times visibility was very poor.

However we were able to weave our way around the streams pouring off the glacier and follow the line of a disused ski lift to the Theodul hut at 3300m. As we got to the last few hundred meters we were caught in an adultery of hail making the final stretch quite horrible.

You can see the mountain hut where we stayed at the top right of the picture above.

The hut was more comfortable than anticipated and the 2 Polish gentlemen we shared our room with were charming. In the morning we were treated to a magnificent view of Cervino (we are now in Italy and cannot refer to the Matterhorn here).

And so we embarked on the journey down. 3300m to around 1600m at Saint Jacques in the Aosta valley and our hotel Frantze le Rascard at Champoluc.

The promised storm had struck overnight with thunder, lightning and a bit of snow which had frozen to the 45 degree slope as a trap to less experienced hikers than us, of whom there were none in the hut.

We set out for what promised to be a 5-6 hour mostly downhill hike. The first section across high moraine was like picking our way across the surface of another planet.

We were elated to see the clear path markers on the Italian side of the mountain having been warned that at times it could be difficult to discern the route. The views were stupendous.

There was an occasional first aid stop.

After a few hours the path became a bit more difficult to follow and the story of how we saved the Germans began. Yellow diamond painted route markers were replaced with easier to see red flags and we were able to make good progress, albeit with a bit more uphill than we had been anticipating.

Grimly aware of our dependence on those little red flags we ploughed onwards until we met a horde of Italian school kids on an outing coming up the mountain merrily waving little red flags. Time to revert to the map. 

Above is me trying to work out the route using a map and location finder on Google maps (which shows topography and location but none of the paths or ski lifts in this area, which are useful for navigation).

Archie was not particularly impressed when informed that we should have been following the yellow diamonds and not the red flags and that we were now 3 hours off route. There was only one option, back up and try to find the route. It was now around lunchtime.

We made it back up to a peak from which we could see the TMR route in the distance and that's when we met the hapless Germans. These fools had blindly followed red flags and found themselves lost on the mountain heading confidently in the wrong direction. We put them right and armed with a new navigational confidence 

decided to strike out in a straight line to regain the path.

Fording rivers and traversing meadows.

You can judge a man by how he faces adversity. At this point, hitherto glum Archie struck a song:

Everywhere we go (all repeat)

People always ask us (etc)

Who we are

And where we come from

So we tell them

We are the Cannons

The mighty mighty Cannons

And if they can't hear us

We shout a little louder"

Repeat for an hour.

And then an hour later we were 6 hours in, back on the track and feeling brilliant.

From here we headed into a beautiful remote valley full of lush grasses and wild flowers (will do a post an plants later). 

From here at about 2600m we still had 1000m to descend. The legs were all getting a bit wobbly on the increasingly frequent steeper sections. 

7 hours into the 5 hour hike with 2 hours to go spirits and thighs were beginning to fray a little so we reverted to the emergency kit: triathlon technique and a few energy gels consumed. Although quite like a mouthful of something unspeakable they did the trick for a while and we fought our way down to Saint Jacques, hopped on a bus, rode up a ski lift to our hotel, hiked down another 15 minutes and a mere 9 hours after leaving the mountain peak, 21km and about 2000m of down and 500m of up later, we arrived.

Dinner tasted very, very good and we were mighty pleased with ourselves for having made it and for having saved the hapless Germans.

Archie's view

These past days have been quite tough and my body is starting to ache. My calfs are dying, I'm not sure if I can walk much today.  The first of the 2 days was manageable because we just walked over the glacier, however the second day, yesterday, was super tough. We walked for a solid 8 hours including going the wrong way down like 300 meters. So I am proud of what we have accomplished but don't really want to continue walking. 

Felix's view

Absolutely do not attempt this hike if you have even a hint of illness. 

Today's learning

Don't be fooled into following the easiest looking path and when taking hordes of school children on a hike, encourage them to destroy any route markers in order that lazy travellers should be forced to use a map.

Today's second learning

The Swiss economy is screwed. The cost of a lift out of Zermatt for 2 adults and a child (Archie is a few days inside the 14.99 year child age limit) was CHF113 one way. The Gornergrat lift is a knee wobbling CHF94 each. The lift up to our hotel in Italy: EUR6 return for 3 of us. Prices have become so high in Switzerland that tourists chose to go elsewhere not appreciating being charged CHF5 for a litre of tap water. It's a shame but there isn't an easy budget option other than self catering. It must be hard running a business with fewer and fewer visitors, but the answer isn't to try to extract more and more from the decreasing numbers of tourists. Note to hedge fund managers: short the Swiss franc medium term as banking secrecy regulation, new international tax transparency rules and the current currency valuation does not seem a sustainable cocktail.