Patrouille des Glaciers (PDG) is a ski mountaineering competition well known all over the Switzerland and recognized even by the non-initiated: Who’s going to win this year? A Swiss team or the French? Or, god forbid, the Italians? The Swiss army fighters fly in sky and draw Helvetian crosses, with intense noise provoking avalanches that might bury some poor buddies skiing outside the protected area…
The highest point of the itinerary: checkpoint at the saddle of Rosablanche
(3160 m). Behind the forest of skis, one can see the glacier Glacier de
Prafleuri and the Pt Mont Calme mountain. In the background, one can recognize
the silhouette of the Mont Fort. Mont Fort is famous for the steepest and the
most feared black piste of the region. It is supposed to be so steep that not
even the ratracks can climb it, and therefore it remains unmaintained. According
to my knowledge, the slope is slightly steeper than 30 degrees
This all I had known about the PDG before I received the email from Joana, saying: Hello, we don’t know each other but one friend told me that you ski… we are looking for a girl to complete our PDG’s team, not interested? Well, I was skiing… on the pistes and I did three minor skitours the previous year. And now, they want me to run a 25 km long trail of the Pt. Patrouille, during which one has to climb 2000 m within a given time limit? At the beginning it sound to me as a good joke. However, the girls managed to motivate me to such an extent that I agreed to became the substitute member of the team…
La Rosablanche: View of the Glacier de Prafleuri and parked helicopters of
the Swiss army
The day of the Patrouille came and the three ladies were all in well shape, so, unfortunately, I didn’t participate. Since I didn’t want to stay at home neither, I decided to take the skis and go to meet them at the highest point of the itinerary, cheer them up and bring them some water and energy in the form of chocolate and dried fruits.
Pavel taking rest at the lake Lac du Pt. Mont Fort
The plan was to set off at 4:30 from Verbier, climb the dark, steep pistes up to Les Ruinetters and continue to Col de la Chaux, where I should have met the second member of the ‘expedition’, Pavel.
Zoom of a helicopter, Lac du Pt. Mont Fort
In reality, we were more than 30 minutes late already upon arrival to Verbier. In addition, the piste I was supposed to climb was black dark, without a single moving light of a headlamp. I hoped to climb accompanied by sporty gentlemen always ready to help lady in troubles, but there was nobody. Briefly, I got scared, gave up the original plan and following the crowd, I took the cable-car to Ruinettes. From there I started my long way to Col de la Chaux. The sun was rising and I was alone in the mountains… A group of 4 skiers passed by and I caught up with another two… besides them, nobody. Oh, I almost forgot to mention a local guy walking his dog by a ski scooter…
Still at the lake. View of a short final climb towards the Col de la Chaux.
The picture is dominated by Pavel’s K2s
Meanwhile I got 2 SMS: the girls passed the first two checkpoints without any problems and in an excellent time. Then I lost the mobile network… I said to myself: if you don’t want to arrive late, girl, you should speed up!
The last picture from the lake: me enjoying the warm spring sun
Just before the Col de la Chaux I suddenly found myself in a crowd of people descending from the cable-car. Instead of speeding up, I had to wait for Pavel who got lost in a ski bar and then, I spend some 20 minutes in a jam at the saddle Col de la Chaux. Some scared skiers got stuck at the top of steep, frozen slope and totally jammed the passing. Following the advice of a ‘patrolling’ soldier, we skied the slope a bit aside, trying to avoid the masses. The slope was nothing else than some 100 meters of icy snow with scattered stone blocks, a ‘true pleasure’… What I am for god’s sake doing here? Damned soldier, I am going to die here because of him! I can simply turn and go back; I have NO chance to meet the girls up there! Fortunately, my Slovak swearing was just an unintelligible babbling for all but Pavel…
Finally, we managed to ski down the slope without any particular difficulties and we continued at rapid pace to Rosablanche. I arrived there some 15 minutes before the girls, we greeted each other happily, but just for a couple of seconds because Joana, Saioa and Vroni had to continue their journey. Me and Pavel, we stayed at the checkpoint for another good half-an-hour. We were running out of sugar and energy. So we took some pictures of army helicopters, met another team of friends, and finally set off for the return journey back to Verbier. A short descend from the saddle of Rosablenche continued by a long and boring traverse of the Grand DÈsert glacier. The glacier was safe and with a well-imprinted highway of traces, so nobody had to bother by roping… Another short descend from the Col the Momin and a final climb to Col de la Chaux was followed by an express descend to Verbier by following the skipistes. It was a nice, hot day. Relatively good snow from the 3000 m turned quickly into water spattering from the skis. And at the very bottom, even the watery snow disappeared turning into mud. The Patrouille de Glaciers, which took place the last weekend of April, officially closed the skiseason 2010…
Epilogue: The girls were awesome; they finished with a nice average time in their category, i.e. 7:48. Just for comparison, the winner of the Big Patrouille from Zermatt to Verbier, which represents 53 km and 3994 m of positive gain, was a Swiss team that finished the race in 5 hours 52 minutes… are these guys still humans?
