Pralognan to the Refuge de la Valette – We Climbed (Second blog today)

Today was to be a veritable beast. We would only cover 8kms today but they were all uphill and not a great deal less than vertical. It doesn’t look as steep and as high in the photo below than it is in real life.

We slowly packed and ambled down to a bakers, where we bought eclairs and pastries, eating them outside in the sunshine with paper cups of coffee. Weep with joy that we have lived to see this day. For he today that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother.

And shortly before noon, after a very lazy start, we commenced our climb, having luckily been advised by the woman in the bakery that one of the routes uphill was blocked. We took the other.

The climb was slow and hard. Pushing our rucksacks forward with aching legs and sweaty backs. Eventually Pralognan sank away into the distance, as another sunny afternoon wore on.

But as it did then the slope got steeper until we were scrambling on our hands and knees and then with proper climbing footholds and handholds. It began to feel a little serious and neither of us cope brilliantly with vertigo. Looking down Danny was twenty metres below me and I hoped that I wouldn’t dislodge a rock.

Thank the little baby Jesus that it wasn’t raining.

Eventually the slope slackened and we could walk upright uphill again.

It all felt safer and time to relax as we enjoyed the afternoon sunshine and the autumnal colours.

The destabilising part of rock climbing for us is the rucksack with 17 or 18 kilos of kit, clothes and consumables. With the rucksack on your back it is quite easy to fall backwards and we need to be vigilant at all times. So there.

Then we moved up into another steep and rocky section. Best not slip here.

It had taken us five hours of non-stop climbing as we began to move on to a more clearly defined path. The problem being that the path chose a tricky route. Although at the most difficult places someone had fixed chains to the rock face that we could hold on to as we continued our ascent.

We worked our way over another horizon and spotted our Refuge, some way ahead on the hilltop. It turned out that our remote climb had been rewarded by being with only two other people in the Refuge, an older woman and her daughter who had both hitchhiked down to Pralognan. They were impressed that we had made it up our climbing route.

I was beginning to feel a bit rough, as a cold that had been chasing me since England was finally feeling my collar. Only one thing to do …..

I couldn’t eat much, just half a sandwich and a bit of quiche. Best get an early night, on the floor in the kitchen. Best place for an old lag.

Night night.