Night at Chartreuse

On Thursday morning we all woke up after a makeshift sleep over that occurred the night before. It was the standard crew of another crazy American, the witty Russian and myself. We had some breakfast than entered the swiss-mobile to get taken up to where the hike would begin. Our Swiss friend was cool enough to agree to drive us there and then pick us up the next day, with out him the trip could not have occurred, Thanks again!

The drive to the mountain was ominous. It was super cloudy with a mix of threatening snow. The thermometer said it was 3 below freezing and that gave us a good laugh. After getting slightly lost trying to find the trail we had to ask for directions but soon we were back on the right track. By the time we were dropped off the clouds looked way more promising.

We started our way up the mountain and it was a workout from the very beginning. Carry a lot of gear up a mountain makes it a lot more challenging. By the time we hit snow we had to stop and consider where exactly we were going because it gets a lot harder to stay on trail once all the snow is gone. Yet eventually we made it all the way up to the Petit Som. The view from the top was absolutely amazing.

At this point we were far above the clouds and had a 360 degree view of the countryside. The clouds made it seem as if there could have been an ocean below us. It was really beautiful to see the Snow topped mountains in the distance along with the greener hills below. For a moment it was it seemed like everything just seemed to be floating on top of the clouds.

We had some dejeuner at the summit and then went down to find our home for the evening. Our home was a little shack at near the trail for the Grand Som. When we arrived it had a lock on the door, after a short pause in our heartbeats, it turned out that it was unlocked. We scoped it out and set up our tent inside it. This was going to be our home for the night.

It had a place for a campfire inside the cabin but there was no chimney. We were going to try it out. The next step was to find some fire-wood in the nearby forest. After a few hours of wood collecting we had a nice pile going. Enough to have several hours of fire.

We decided to scope out the trail for the Grand Som. After a bit of recon we determine that it would be doable but at the same time it was really steep so we would have to be extremely careful.

The evening was spent to watch the sunset. At one point while watching the sunset there was a strange noise that was coming down the hill. After expecting to discover some sort of mountain yeti it turned out to a person. It is amazing how well footsteps echo when you are in the mountains. The silence is just...silent; nothing can really describe the sound of nothing.

The sunset was really great to see leaving a golden glow on everything as the last light was peering over the horizon. After the sun was down the cold soon followed. It was time to get that fire going and eat dinner.

The fire wasn't easy to start. The wood was pretty damp so for a fair amount of time I spent just finding dry grass and bring it back to the fire. Eventually we got the thing going and had a nice little fire in our cabin. The problem was that event though there was some air holes for the smoke to go through we wound up smoking out the entire cabin.

Eventually we had to move the fire outside because there was no way to spend any long amount of time it the cabin. Another round of collecting grass occurred and eventually the fire outside was on its way as well. After awhile the smoked cleared from inside the cabin and it was soon bedtime.

We went to bed and the plan was to wake up between 3:30 and 4 to make it to the summit to watch the sunrise. Later that night it became colder and colder. A combination of wind and cloud-cover that rolled in told us that it would be way too dangerous to try the climb to see the sunrise. After throwing on a lot more clothing I was warm again and was able to sleep for a bit.

The next morning we woke up and had some breakfast and a fire going. It was really cloudy and foggy that morning and was mildly snowing off and on. The entire summit was wrapped in a cloud. I was disappointed because I thought that the chances for a good view were gone.

I was wrong.

Eventually some of the clouds lifted and the fog started disappearing. We packed all of our stuff up and brought along just what we thought we would need to make it to the summit. We started our hike up towards the misty cloud and once we broke through the ridge a vast vista of clear skies was showing its way through.

Hiking to the summit was just amazing. We roped ourselves together incase anyone slipped on the snow and marched our way towards the Grand Som. The clouds kept on clearing as we continued to make our way towards the top. Finally we arrived at the summit and it was just fantastic. The view of Mount Blanc was superb and overall it was a great sense of accomplishment.

We made it.

The climb down was quite rapid. It is always fun to see that you can cover the same distance going down a hill three to five times faster than going up it. In about no time at all we were back at the rendezvous point and took the time to just lie back and reflect on our adventure. What a great adventure it was.