Sunset on the ALPS
After numerous trips to the Alps which included an equally numerous number of failed attempts to climb one route or another, as well as few more succesful ascents, there followed a gap of almost two decades before I returned to Argentiére. The first trip back was a fleeting affair, sufficient time to reacqauint myself with the valley and a couple of minor summits as well as Mont Buet’s north ridge which proved to be an excellent run. With more time available on my second trip back, there was greater opportunity to reflect on the changes that were now starkly obvious all around.
Returning in June, following the huge snowfall earlier in the year, I’d been concerned that many of the routes I hoped to run would still be buried. Some were - looking over to Mont Buet from Bel Oiseau, the north ridge would have proved challenging and huge cornices hung above the upper slopes. On the Bec Rouge Supérieur, the remaining snow forced a more direct line in places than I had taken previously, on rock I would have preferred to avoid. But in general, the snow cover was appallingly thin, the glaciers retreat soberingly evident, and the rotten rock worryingly loose. Routes I would have had aspirations to climb 20 years ago, were clearly no longer viable, either due to bare ice where previously there would have been good névé, or rockfall, or both.
The speed at which this high alpine environment is literally disappearing is frightening. Indeed many if not all the routes and summits I once aspired to, are no longer viable in the traditional summer season, which itself is now far earlier and shorter – by the end of June it is as good as over as far as climbing is concerned. Things had barely started at this time of year when I was packing a rope, rack and axes. Running is less obviously affected for the majority, except for the heat. The late June heatwave may have been the worst on record, but it is far from unusual.
Meanwhile Chamonix was as mad as ever, the races held during our stay attracting tens of thousands. Watching the marathon finishers run past a band playing The Bare Necessities was, frankly, quite bizarre. The irony I suspect was lost on the majority. Happily, Poco Loco was still going strong.
Reflecting on an enjoyable week’s running including numerous summits to 3,000m, it struck me that for so many younger climbers now looking tentatively to the Alps for adventure, whether their aspirations are grounded in tested ability or as wildly unrealistic as mine once were, the options that remain are far fewer. With the general exception of those climbs in the Aiguille Rouge, Rébuffat’s 100 finest routes in the Mont Blanc Massif – and guidebooks detailing many similar routes across the region – now represent little more than a historical archive. Whether I was ever actually capable of climbing many of the routes I dreamed of is, in some ways, not the point – the possibility was real. Now, it is not. And without that possibility, the dream cannot exist.
There are other places, countless summits yet to be scaled, and routes to be found, climbed and run. But after seven thousand years of little significant change in the Alps, this is the difference of just two decades.