Gran Paradiso (07.05.2019)
Written by hmsv1 (Hannah Vickers)
| Start point | Chabod Hut (2,702m) |
|---|---|
| Endpoint | Pont (1,962m) |
| Characteristic | Randonnée/Telemark |
| Duration | 8h 24min |
| Distance | 25.4km |
| Vertical meters | 2,517m |
| GPS |
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| Ascents | Gran Paradiso (4,061m) | 07.05.2019 |
|---|---|---|
| Madonnina del Gran Paradiso (4,058m) | 07.05.2019 |
Another year and another trip to the Alps :) This year I was joining Simon (who I didn’t know before arriving in Chamonix) and our guide Rob Jarvis who I’ve skied with several times before, for a 4-day trip into the Bernese Oberland with the hope of ticking off some of the major 4000m peaks in the area. Well, that was the original plan anyway. Unfortunately the first week of May seemed to be offering nothing but unsettled weather north of the Rhone valley with a lot of new snow being dumped in the mountains - and most up in the Bernese Oberland. We’d already heard that there had been some avalanche fatalities in the Bernese Oberland in the week before we’d arrived, so it was a reminder that conditions were still full on winter up high. With the unsettled forecast in mind but potential for drier weather further south for the first 2 days we decided on a new plan to try and make the most of the week. Rob suggested heading over to Italy and getting some fast acclimatization on the south side of the Mont Blanc massif i.e. by taking the Skyway lift up to 3400m and then doing a quick morning venture up the north ridge of the Petit Flambeau. We could then continue down to the Gran Paradiso national park and make a traverse of the Gran Paradiso from the Chabod hut and descend via the Vittorio Emanuelle hut the following day, which would make the most of the two days of good weather and also allow us to get some acclimatisation for a higher 4000er later in the week. Even though I’d already climbed the Gran Paradiso in 2014 by the northwest face I wasn’t too disappointed that we’d be going back there. It would be in any case a very different experience approaching the mountain from the long easy-angled glacier instead of cramponing straight up the steep northwest face - and much faster going down! So with this new plan we left Chamonix at 7am the next day and took the short drive through to Courmayeur to get the lift and venture out onto the Petit Flambeau.
After our morning excursion here, we went back down to the car park and started the journey toward Aosta and eventually Pont at the southern end of the valley close to where the hike up to the Chabod hut would start. It was a warm drive across the Aosta valley, hardly reminiscent of the -16 that it was at 3400m earlier in the morning! We were eventually ready to start the hike shortly after 3.30pm and with around 900m of height gain from the car park to the Chabod hut at around 2700m, it was expected to take some 2.5-3 hours since we had to carry the skis for several hundred metres through the forest. It was a good path though, so we walked in ski boots for just under an hour before hitting the snow line and switching to skis. Finally above the treeline we could admire some of the fine mountain views around us with the soft early evening light on our backs all the way. I actually thought it would be easier to skin up instead of carrying the skis but to be honest I think hiking up the path with skis on our backs was a lot less tiring ;) We arrived at the Chabod hut just before 6pm and since it wasn’t long until dinner was being served we used the time to dry out boots and skins for the next day and repack our bags so they’d be ready to go in the morning. Breakfast was scheduled for the pleasant hour of 5am, so there was no rush to go straight to bed after our dinner which was nice.
Despite us having a small 4-bedroom dormitory to ourselves, it was pretty warm in the room overnight and I struggled to fall asleep, so by 5am when it was time to get up I was feeling pretty lethargic. Still, the breakfast was OK, the coffee was a bit mediocre and we were ready to leave around 6am. Fortunately there was not really too much time pressure since the approach was on a north-facing glacier plus the fact that it was still unusally chilly for the time of year.
From the Chabod hut we had a small descent by foot before putting on the skis and ski crampons for the start of the ascent. It was pretty obvious from the hard snow conditions that Italy had not received anywhere near as much fresh snow as the mountains further north like in the Mont Blanc massif and in Switzerland! With the exception of a few traverses across some steeper slopes, much of the skinning was on gently-angled glacier and should have been easy work really but with the altitude, heavy rucksack and lack of sleep I was feeling pretty slow and tired. Seemed like both Rob and Simon weren’t struggling as much as I was so it was a bit embarrassing to ask them to let me stop and take a breather every now and then! By the time we reached the ridge linking the routes from the Chabod and Vittorio Emanuelle huts it had become proper cold and windy, so I got my down jacket on a short distance before we arrived at a plateau where other people were leaving behind skis. I welcomed the thought of transitioning to boot crampons after having skinned most of the way up with the ski crampons anyway. At least it should be a bit lighter to walk without the skis on….
The final part of the ascent to the Madonna summit was just easy walking on firm snow which eventually narrowed toward the summit ridge. The trail was pretty well trodden though so conditions were perfect for cramponing and fortunately there were no queues. There has actually now been installed a kind of “two-way” system to manage congestion on the Gran Paradiso, so now there is no need to descend off the summit the same way as the route up. Instead there is a short downclimb on a via ferrata-type ladder and then the descent follows a narrow ledge parallel to the ascent route a bit lower down. Kind of good idea I think, but it did feel like the mountain had become a bit pedestrianised. I guess this is no different to many other popular peaks in not just the Alps but in other mountain ranges as well though. Maybe traffic lights will be installed next?! Since we were only a stone’s throw away from the highest summit (the Madonna summit is only a few metres lower) we climbed back up the other side of the col between the two summits and followed the ridge along to what appeared to be the highest point. There is no cross, no trig point or Madonna up there, so it was a bit dull. But at least nice to be alone on the highest point instead of having dozens of other climbers behind us. After a few summit pictures we climbed down to the col again and followed the descent route back down the glacier to where we’d left our skis. By now I was feeling a bit sick which was sort of odd because I don’t normally feel sick even if I do get mild symptoms of altitude sickness like a small headache, but I didn’t have one of those today.
Anyway, after we’d had a break here and started skiing back down the other side of the ridge towards the Vittorio Emanuelle hut I found out that it was just some trapped gas in my stomach that was making me feel uncomfortable earlier. The snow wasn’t particularly amazing to ski on - mostly wind packed crust where people hadn’t skied and recycled wind crust where there were most tracks. The tracked-out crust actually proved to be much better to ski than “pristine” wind crust as Rob called it…! Eventually as we lost more and more height we found patches of good spring snow to ski, but not all of the slopes had transformed by the time we’d reached the hut in early afternoon. We took a proper break here to drink and enjoy the warm sunshine - nice to be out of the cold wind which had been with us all the way to the summit. Rob and Simon had a bowl of minestrone soup here too before we put on the skis again for the last part of the descent. The route down to the valley hugs the left hand side of a steep sided gorge and we managed to get a fair way down before hitting the snow line. In some ways I wouldn’t have minded taking off the skis sooner since the snow was a bit patchy in between the rocks and bushes, and I spent far more time slip sliding than skiing here. So all that was left to do was to strap the skis to the rucksack again and follow the pleasant forest path back down to Pont. The path wasn’t too stony, so it was pretty OK to walk on even in ski boots - even so, we were all still quite happy to not have to walk further in ski boots once we arrived at the hotel cafe in Pont! The afternoon was finished off with a coffee outside (or in my case several glasses of cold coke) before we started the drive back to Chamonix. In all it had been only 8.5 hours from the Chabod hut, but it felt like a really good long journey up and over the mountain and it was most definitely a good way to start off the week and enjoy the sunshine while it was with us!
| Start date | 07.05.2019 06:27 (UTC+01:00 DST) |
| End date | 07.05.2019 14:51 (UTC+01:00 DST) |
| Total Time | 8h 24min |
| Moving Time | 6h 17min |
| Stopped Time | 2h 06min |
| Overall Average | 3.0km/h |
| Moving Average | 4.0km/h |
| Distance | 25.4km |
| Vertical meters | 2,517m |
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