Note: all times are approximate, we had no watch to verify.
So alas, it was Thursday night and we had decided to do the Grands Mulets route in a big one day push, much like a single day Rainier project. Very possible albeit tiring. Friday morning we arrived at the midi to see that the first bin was delayed from 8:10 to 8:30. N'importe quoi. We began (2200m, ~8h45) the massive traverse under the steep face of the midi and Glacier Rond towards the crevassed zone in the Bosson Glacier passing two groups (one pair and one solist) in the serac zone on our way to the Grand Mulets hut.
Traversing under the midi.
Approaching the serac zone. Where we passed the skiers.
We were making good time and were about 150m vertical meters below the Grand Mulet hut (2900m, ~10h15) when we heard the first of two small pieces fall of the Rond. I shat myself because we had just traversed under it.
Then just as were continued up again I heard a huge bang and saw this:
which turned into this:
The Glacier Rond had calved and produced an absoulutely massive catastrophic avalanche that ran 1500+ meters, cresting the plan on the Bosson Glacier and raging all the way down the Bosson Glacier to near timberline.
We knew that whoever was in the zone at the time was in big trouble. After the snow cleared I saw someone running around in search mode, frantically trying to find his partner. I decided I was not going to go back into the zone of death after all the pieces we witnessed falling off and so Tom called the Gendarmes who were quickly on the scene with helis.
After some time, we looked back and saw a huge crowd of rescuers combing the area for hours. We decided to continue up, a bit frazzled.
The Grand Mulet hut.
I figured that we had escaped death once, now we were invincible.
The rest of the ascent was pretty mellow 30-35 degree snow with occasional crevassed sections, however the snow was primo; that was sure.
At first, I had felt extremely good about the push and the altitude, but right around 4000m I started seeing unicorns prancing around with hamburgers and on their horns. It was obvious I had to kill them and take their hamburgers or they would signal the Glacier Rond to try and kill me again.
Clouds had been building all day but we were determined to get to the top. I had slayed the unicorns and feasted well, not one obstacle layed in my way. It was about 15h00 and we had crested 4100m on our way to Vallot Box.
For some reason it took us eternity to get to the vallot hut. The Face Nord, and the Crete Summital. So close.
I was ecstastic when we arrived, I could finally start dancing with the elves that had followed me from Grand Mulet hut.
There was nothing but spilled feed and a BIG RED button. I was fondling it, deciding whether to eject.
So close, yet so far. The vallot hut is around 4400m, the summit was within reach. Unfortunately it took us 45 minutes to climb crawl up the 35 degree snow. Step after step, Tom was cruxing on some ice literally 8 feet from the Vallot hut, he yelled at me to "be careful" as we got out our ice tools. I finally grabbed the guyline and nearly fell headfirst into the WC. It was pathetic. Really.
Luckily, once we had made the descision to turn around, the weather completely closed in. It left a nice corridor of pefect untouched pow all the way down.
It was so good.
When we got back down, we had to traverse the zone of death. The destruction was incredible. I would estimate the slide was about 3/4 of a mile wide with chunks of blue glacier ice and rocks everywhere. How anyone could have surived this was beyond me. The debris had filled in all the crevasses in this part of the Glacier and obscuring our escape. What better time than now to get lost in an icefall?
Just in time to stop hallucinating, we found the escape ramp out of the ice fall and skied down to Bossons. We skied pretty low, due to the good snowpack all the way to the foot path near the tunnel at approx 1250m. It was around 17h30. Until the ice fall, we descended 2500 meters in approximately 15-20 minutes. Crazy.
No more skiing please. Just pizza. 10.
Numberz:
Start 2200m/7217ft 8h45
Top-out: 4400m/14,435ft 16h15
Vertical 2300m/7545ft net gain total
Total Descent 3100m/10170ft
Asses kicked: 2
