Mount St. Helens

This past weekend Roanne and I had decided we needed to ski something worthwhile, so after considering a few options we settled on Mount St. Helens. We decided to try it on the Sunday, and began negotiations on how to approach the logistics. It would be a pretty full day (over 5600 feet of elevation gain) and it is a 3.5 hour drive from Seattle so we needed to head down the night before. I was advocating heading to the trail head the night before and pitching a tent in the parking lot to get a nice and early start, while Roanne was advocating heading down the night before and setting up shop in a hotel room in Woodland, an hour from the trailhead. I protested that since getting married I feel like I hardly ever get to sleep in parking lots anymore, to which she replied that I should have married someone who was more adventurous. I replied that I had thought she was adventurous, to which Roanne conceded that, yes, she was indeed adventurous at certain times, but I should have married someone who was more consistently adventurous. I recognized the truth in this, conceded the point, and we booked a hotel in Woodland.

We headed down Saturday night, and after stopping along the way for dinner at "Happy Teryaki #4" (surprisingly good, I can't even imagine how good #1, 2, and 3 must be), we eventually made our way to Woodland Motel 6 which was located about 100 meters east of I-5. After forcing the desk clerk to interrupt his game of Warcraft to check us in, we managed to get a pretty good sleep until we were awoken by an idling truck in the parking lot at 6:00am. We had planned on getting up at 6:30am anyways, so we hopped back in the car and drove the rest of the way to the Marble Mountain Sno-Park where the route started, stopping along the way to sign the climbing register and pick up our permits in Cougar at the Lone Fir Resort.

We arrived at the Sno-Park by about 7:30am, and started gearing up for the days adventures:


I was surprised at how many other people were there, apparently this is a popular winter objective. After we finished sorting out our gear we headed up the trailhead, which was well packed from numerous skiers having been on it previously. The trail gradually climbed and wound through some dense forest, but before too long things began to open up a bit and we could see the expansive white slopes of Mount S. Helens looming ahead of us:


As we continued we eventually emerged out of the forest and things opened up even more:


We eventually reached an open area where we now had a really good view of our objective. Things always look so close when you can see the entire route in front of you, but there was still a lot of elevation to gain before reaching the rim!


It was sunny blue skies ahead, so we appeared to be free and clear from a weather perspective until we looked back behind us and saw some clouds building from the south:


Yeech! Those don't look good. It still looked good ahead though, so we hit the gas and started heading up a ridge. The trees were quite thin by this point and only present on the ridge that we were ascending, here is a shot of Roanne as she heads up this final treed section before gaining the open slopes of the mountain:


The going had been really fast up until this point so we were optimistic about reaching the summit on a good schedule, but once we gained the open slopes we found that the snow was a really hard windpack that made skinning quite difficult. It was too steep to ascend straight up the slope, and too hard to set an edge to traverse, but after a bit of flailing (and wishing that we had brought ski crampons) we finally progressed onto some better snow higher up and resumed our rapid rate of progress. The next landmark was Monitor Ridge where there is a small weather station set up, here is Roanne taking a breather:


After a short break to consume some delicious sandwiches we re-motivated and continued on up the open slopes in front of us:


We had been passing a few parties throughout the day and making good progress, and continued to reel a few people in as we progressed up the mountain. There were a bunch of existing skin tracks, but they had largely been trampled into oblivion by herds of mindless snowshoers (and they weren't direct enough anyways), so I eschewed those in favor of the diretissima line until Roanne informed me that she was going to stop following my track if it kept going straight up.

Having sorted out our philosophical differences on skinning we continued up, with the clouds chasing us up the mountain:


We continued to make good progress in the better snow higher up, and before too long we neared the summit, having moved up above the cloud layer:


After the final stretch we were on the top, though it isn't a very impressive summit, being just the high point on the crater rim. I'm sure it was a lot nicer before the top blew off, but we were feeling a bit tired by this point so we appreciated the fact that those last 1000 feet of climbing are now distributed around the countryside. Here is a shot of the happy adventurers on the summit, with Mount Adams (you're next!) in the background:


We didn't get too close to the rim since we didn't want to fall off the cornice and into the crater, but looking to the north we could see down into the bottom where the dome was steaming, with Mount Rainier visible further north:


Having planted our metaphorical flag and eaten some delicious Safeway cookies (chocolate chip, holy smokes are those things ever good) it was now time to head down, especially since the clouds had resumed their upward progress and it now looked like we would be skiing down through them. Without further ado we descended down into the clouds, here is Roanne making her way down through the variable conditions:


The snow wasn't great, varying between wind pack, crust, and ice, but it would take really really bad conditions before I would stop having fun on skis (like maybe skiing on dirt?) so it was still a good time. We did manage to find some pockets of good powder in some small drainages where spindrift had accumulated, so we savored that before heading back out into the crust. Part way down the sun emerged so we had a break to sit down and eat something and soak up the mountain vibes:


We then continued on our way, and were able to run it all the way back to the car without needed to re-skin or do any appreciable double poling. Roanne was pretty gassed by this point and each time she arrived to a point where I was dutifully waiting for her she would flop down onto the snow and would only regain the upright posture necessary for downward progress on skis with considerable cajoling and discussion of additional cookies waiting in the car.

We did eventually make it though, and celebrated our successful ascent by changing out of our ski gear and driving back to Seattle. Definitely a fun trip and highly recommended for anyone who likes going up and down on skis. Here are the stats, first the topo (we climbed the Worm Flows route which seems to be the most popular winter route) which shows our relatively straightforward out and back:


Next the equally straightforward elevation profile, which shows that we climbed and descended 5600 feet over the course of about 11 miles round trip:


And finally, most aesthetically pleasing, the Google Earth view that shows our trip up and down the mountain:

Vertfest 2011

Last year I participated in my first randonee race (backcountry ski) by doing Vertfest up at Alpental, and I remembered it as being a good time so I planned on doing it again this year. I registered the week before, but when Saturday night rolled around I checked the weather for Alpental and it said that it was raining at the base and they expected rain for the next day. Stinker! I found myself wishing that I hadn't registered, but I consoled myself with the thought that you can't live in the PNW if you need to stay home and sit on your couch every time there is a little liquid sunshine in the forecast.

I woke up early the next morning to get my stuff packed up, and lo and behold there was a blue sky outside my window! This was great for my morale, and after a delicious breakfast and a molto bene cappucino I jumped in the Jetta and headed for Snoqualmie Pass. I had tried to convince Roanne to join me but to no avail, she had decided that she would rather stay home and read mystery novels. Registration ended at 9:00am, followed by the pre-race meeting, and after that everyone headed out to warm up a bit by going up and down the lower part of the ski hill. It was a bit funny to overhear some of the comments from the "normal" skiers who were there for a day of riding the lifts, they seemed to think that it was completely insane to want to race each other up and down the hill. It really isn't that crazy, I'm sure lots of those incredulous people go on hikes in the summer, which involves walking up a hill and then walking back down. Why not strap some skis to your feet and do it while there is snow so that you can have some fun on the way back down?!?

Eventually the start lines were marked out and people started to assemble, as seen in the photo below (the only photo I took, sorry about that!):


There were two lines, with the first for people on the "race" division who would go up and down twice for over 4000 feet of vertical and the second for those in the "rec" division who would only go up and down once. I had, of course, registered for the race division as I can't turn down the opportunity to suffer a little longer for the same entry fee. After a beacon check there was a short speech to commemorate a local backcountry skier who had passed away two weeks prior in an accident in Snoqualmie Pass, a pretty sad situation.

We then clicked up our heel risers, the gun fired, and we were off! Like last year, many people started sprinting up the hill which is ridiculous in my books since you can't maintain that. I just tried to keep a brisk pace so that I wouldn't get stuck behind too many people, which worked well as I was in the top 15 or so skiers by the time we were all lined out. The front guys were in skin suits and had really small skis, so I knew I had no hope of hanging with them, so I was happy with my position. I felt pretty good and leapfrogged up a few positions before settling in close to another guy who was about the same pace. We headed up around the base of Chair 2, and continued up towards the top of Denny Mountain. There were 2 boot pack sections, at which point the suffering really began. I don't have a fast way to mount skis on my pack so I just carried them up in a really awkward (but faster than stopping to mount them on my pack) manner, also really tiring.

I made it through those, and soon after was de-skinning at the top of Upper International ("Upper Nash" in the local dialect). I headed down, and after a somewhat sketchy drop into the moguls I was on my way down. I felt better than the year before when it had been icy, but nevertheless I really began to suffer about halfway down. Randonee racing is a funny thing, when you are ascending you can't wait to descend, and then when you are descending you can't wait to start ascending again. I guess that is because the only time you don't feel like falling over and throwing up is for the short interval following the transition between skins and no-skins when you have gotten a 30 second rest.

I finally made it down and then managed to convince myself to head back up for the second lap. This was a real grinder, I was in all sorts of misery and ruing the day that I ever signed up for the race, and promising myself that I would never do another randonee race. Regretfully, I couldn't stop thinking about how I already signed up to do the Wasatch Powder Keg randonee race in Salt Lake City in a month, a similar race but longer, more difficult, and held at 10,000 feet above sea level. After successfully powering down my mind I continued on, and eventually reached the top of the second ascent where I de-skinned and headed down again.

I actually felt better this time down and skied pretty well, I have been doing a lot more skiing this year so maybe that has been helping my downhill skills or maybe I just got lucky. In any case, I finally shot across the finish line at the base after about 1:57 from the start. I can't remember my time from last year, but I am pretty sure I was over 2 hours though the course was shortened a bit. I didn't bother trying to do any lift-assisted skiing afterward, having learned the year before that after a randonee race your legs don't work well enough to have any fun doing that. I also didn't stick around to see the results so I'm not sure how I did, but I'll post it when I find out.

So, I guess it was fun. I think an essential skill for people who do these sorts of things is a short memory and transformational retrospective so that things which seemed horrible at the time somehow have a very positive memory associated with them. I am pretty sure that I have these skills, so if you ask me in a few days I'm sure I won't be able to stop raving about how much fun HurtFest was, and how you MUST do it with me next year.

Kendall Ridge

The weekend that I was skiing in Chamonix saw some really warm weather back in Washington, to the extent that the ski resorts in Snoqualmie Pass actually closed due to the conditions being so bad. We didn't get a lot of snow during the week but it did cool off a little, so that the rain soaked snow froze to a crust and created less-than-ideal ski conditions. Despite this, when the weekend rolled around and the weather looked like it might be decent, we were definitely going skiing since a rotten day in the back country with skis strapped on your feet is far better than a nice day in the city with your feet propped up on a couch.

We decided to try skiing Kendall Ridge since I am trying to explore all of the places in my Washington backcountry ski guidebook, and it sounded pretty fun. There was one other car present when we pulled up at the trailhead, so at least one other person thought the conditions were worthwhile for heading out. We clicked into our skis at around 9:30am and started skinning up through the forest. We soon emerged from the forest into a clear cut with smaller trees and more open areas, and continued our ascent. The trees were completely soaked with water at this point, so we got pretty wet when we had to squeeze between them. Here is Roanne trying to enjoy herself despite all the moisture as we slowly gain elevation:


As we continued to ascend, the water on the trees slowly turned to snow, and the thin layer of fresh snow on the crust became a little thicker. Another bonus was that the clouds parted and the sun came out. Here is Roanne continuing to climb in our newfound sunshine:


Eventually the top of the slope we were ascending came into sight, and we climbed the final stretch onto Kendall Ridge. Here I am headed up this final section:


The last part had been quite open so we were pretty excited for the way down. Before doing that however, we decided to work our way along the ridge some more since I am always hesitant to turn around and head down when it is possible to climb further. We soaked in the view a little before heading on, here is a nice view of the Chair Peak and it's environs where we had been touring a few weeks ago:


We then headed back into the forest and continued along the ridge, as the clearcut ended there. Here I am about to reenter the forest:


We continued along the ridge through the forest, which stayed fairly flat with some minor undulations. After a stop for lunch we continued up, as the ridge gradually began to steepen towards Kendall Peak proper. Here I am as things open up and get a bit steeper towards Kendall Peak:


As we continued the terrain became quite steep, making further progress on our skis quite difficult. By this point Roanne was strongly suggesting that we turn around, but I somehow managed to convince her that we needed to test the ski-carrying capabilities of our packs by bootpacking. So, we continued on (though we only tested the ski-carrying capabilities of my pack since I somehow ended up carrying both sets of skis) and eventually topped out onto a rocky high point. I knew that we were not on Kendall Peak yet since the rocky ridge continued along further, but after wading through knee deep snow along this high ridge we eventually were blocked by a drop off and had to turn around. Here is Roanne wading after me on this final stretch of our ascent:


At this point I finally conceded that it was time to head down, so we reversed our tracks to a point where we could remove our skins and put our skis back on and got ready to head down. Here is Roanne gearing up for the descent:


The snow up at this high point was a pretty good approximation of powder (we were at about 5500 feet), which made for some fun skiing down the steep part of the ridge that we had come up:


Upon reaching the flat ridge below we continued on with some side-stepping and boot packing to surmount the undulations, and then headed down the clear cut with some fun skiing. By this time the sun had softened up the crust, so what had been an icy crust on the way up now had a few inches of soft snow on tip which made for some fun turns. We arrived back at the car just before 4:30pm, an wrapped up a great day out in the backcountry. Here is a topo of our out and back route:


And the profile, which saw us gain about 2600 feet of elevation:

And finally, the most fun, the GoogleEarth view:

Chamonix Day 2: The Vallee Blanche

Our alarms went off at 7:00am and we dragged ourselves out of bed, sore from the previous day's skiing at Les Grand Montets, but eager for the day's adventures that lay ahead. After our baguette and pastry breakfast we began packing our things up, since we would be checking out of the Hapimag that morning in order to make the drive back to Milan that evening after the day's skiing. I had brought along an adapter for European outlets, and when I removed my laptop charger from it the adapter cover broke while still in the outlet, leaving the two live metal contacts exposed. I wasn't quite sure how to deal with this since I didn't want to leave it in there and have the cleaning staff electrocute themselves, so I tried prying at it with the plastic of the enlosure, but after about a minute of doing this there was a loud crack and a bright spark (I had shorted the contacts together) and all of the lights went out (it was still early enough that the sun had not risen).

The upside of this turn of events was that there was no longer power to the broken adapter so I was able to remove it and thus preemptively save a member of the cleaning stafff from electrocution, but the downside was that it was really dark inside now which would make packing difficult. Stinker! Dylan found his headlamp and we fumbled our way to the circuit breaker box (which we had luckily noted its location previously), but even after pushing the circuit breakers back on there was no power restored. We joked that maybe we had blown the power for the entire Hapimag and perhaps all of Chamonix, and continued on with our packing by headlamp.

We then headed to the car, checking out along the way and informing the clerk of the mysterious absence of electricity in our suite. We had arranged to to the Vallee Blanche as part of a guided group (Martin had recounted the story of his friend who had decided to try it on his own and ended up being helicoptered out the next day after spending the night in a crevasse) through Evolution 2 Mountain Guides, and we had been instructed to meet at the base of the Aiguille du Midi cable car at 9:00am so we headed into Chamonix and reached the cable car on schedule. My selection process in choosing a guide had been to e-mail 3 different guiding services and then choose the single company that replied to my e-mail. In hiring a guide you can either get a private guide or do it in a group, we had elected to take the former approach for cost considerations and the chance to meet other people.

The guide fee was 105 euros which seemed pretty reasonable, and we ended up doing it just as a group of 3 (the website said that groups run from 4 to 8 people) which was nice since we were able to chat with the guide more and we were all at about the same level (with the exception of our guide). We convened with Robert (pronounced Roh-bare, of course), our grizzled french guide, and Garret, our fellow client who is from Manchester but currently lives in Egypt and loves windsurfing, at the base of the cable car and then headed to the ticket booth to buy our 50 euro ticket that covered the cable car ride up and the train ride at the end. Unfortunately, when we asked to buy a ticket the woman in the booth said that they were not selling tickets at the moment since the cable car was not operating due to technical problems. When I inquired as to what those technical problems might be, she replied in a thick french accent: "Electricity.", to which Dylan and I turned to each other and burst out laughing, thinking that maybe my inadvertent adapter short circuiting at the Hapimag that morning had shut down the Aiguille du Midi cable car and ruined our day of skiing. Dylan told me that I had to go and apologize to each and every one of the skiers and climbers assembled at the base of the cable car for spoiling their days adventures, but I decided my french wasn't good enough to explain myself so I took a pass.

We spent the next hour and a half drinking coffee in a nearby cafe, listening to the periodic announcements that the next information on the cable car status would be in 15 minutes (every 15 minutes). We had begun considering what we would do for the day if the cable car didn't get fixed (shopping for Euro ski outifts in Chamonix? Playing ping pong back at the Hapimag?) when finally at 10:25am Robert came striding into the cafe with the news that the cable car would be up and running in 5 minutes. We hurriedly donned our harnesses, gathered our skis, and got into line, and sure enough at 10:30am the announcer informed us that the problem had been resolved and we moved through the queue and into the holding area to board the cable car. The cable car soon came sliding down to the platform, and it looked like we were going to have our ski adventure after all!


We boarded the cable car and it whisked us up to the midstation at the Plan de Midi, where we transferred to the next cable car which took us up to the Aiguille du Midi at 3840 meters. I had been up there last summer with Roanne, and I remember seeing the ridge that led out onto the glacier for the Vallee Blanche and other objectives and being super excited at the possibility of skiing it someday, so it was pretty surreal to be back there just 4 months later making it a reality!

We exited the cable car at the top of the Aiguille du Midi and crossed the exposed bridge to the main structure, from where we caught a glimpse of the ridge that we would descend to start our route (the prominent ridge in the foreground):


After crossing the bridge we re-entered the corridor that had been tunneled into the granite spire and headed for the exit onto the ridge. We paused here to put our skis on our packs, and Robert put on crampons. I kept waiting for him to pull more crampons out of his pack and offer them to us but this didn't happen, so we had to be content with short-roping ourseleves together with the thin cord that he offered us. Here are Dylan and Garret donning their packs in the corridor and wondering why Robert didn't bring us any crampons:


With everything in order, we donned our packs and headed out the icy corridor that led onto the ridge. This was pretty amazing, as I this icy corridor had been my strongest memory of the Aiguille du Midi from the summer before, so it was awesome to be headed through it with a set of skis strapped to my pack. Wa-wa-wee-wah!!!!


We emerged from the tunnel onto the narrow ridge in glorious sunshine, and started heading down in a long line of other skiers. I was pleased to see that there were fixed ropes installed, if those hadn't been there I would have been really wishing hard for some crampons but with one hand on the fixed line and one using a ski pole it was no problem. It reminded me a bit of the hike up Half Dome in Yosemite, with the fixed lines up the final slab section to the top.


After an uneventful but breathtaking descent of the ridge we stopped at a flat section at the base to don remove the rope, don our skis and beacons, and get ready to head down. Here is a shot of Dylan and I at the base of the ridge, with Robert getting his skis ready. To our left the sheer north face of the Aiguille du Midi drops steeply down to Chamonix (though apparently insane people do ski this when the conditions are right, to me it looked like the only way down would be drop a 2000 foot cliff).


Here is the view looking back up at the Aiguille du Midi and the ridge that we had hiked down (one person skied down it while we were walking, maybe next time we'll do that!):


With our skis on we swiveled around and took in the majestic view surrounding us, and peered down to the glacier below where we would be descending. Here is about 30 degrees of the view that we had, with some skiers visible on the glacier below:


After a short set of instructions from the grizzled Robert ("Ski behind me, I don't want to pull you out of a crevasse"), he started singing some french song and took off down the glacier with us hot on his heels. Oh man, SO AWESOME!!! I really like the act of skiing, but skiing in surroundings like that is almost too much fun to bear. I had to yell out loud about how much fun I was having otherwise I think I might have exploded with delight. It was an amazing sunny day and was actually pretty hot since there was no wind, so before long we stopped to shed some layers and admire the scenery some more:


We chatted with Robert a bit about the surrounding peaks and climbs, and he told us that he had been guiding for 36 years and it was impossible to say whether he liked skiing or climbing more, but he liked them both ("beacoup, beaucoup, beaucoup."). Now this is someone that I can relate to! Here is Robert holding forth on Chamonix alpine history:


As you can see there wasn't a cloud in the sky, and on the horizon we could just make out the triangular summit of the Matterhorn (also on my climbing objective short list, even above Mont Blanc) which is across the border in Zermatt, Switzerland. At this point we could look back up at the South Face of the Aiguille du Midi which according to Robert has classic rock climbs on it from 6b to 8a, as well as the famous Cosmique Arete which also needs to be climbed by me. To give a sense of scale, you can see a small skier in the lower right of the picture.


At the conclusion of our break Robert broke out into song again and headed down the glacier with us following as I attempted to whistle along to his song (difficult because I had never heard it before, but I still gave it a shot). Robert kept a pretty even pace so it was fun to try and turn exactly where he did, and try to mimic his elegant french technique. After a while we stopped for another break and some more Chamonix climbing trivia, here is Robert holding forth once again with another spectacular backdrop:


Before long we were off again, heading across a flatter and wide-open section of the glacier, with Robert out in the lead under the sunny blue skies:


We continued our pattern of descending for a while and then stopping as we progressed along and down the glacier, here I am soaking it in at one of the stops:


The skiing on the upper sections was really fun, varying from wind slab to consolidated powder that made for some really good skiing, here is a shot of Dylan paused after one of the looser sections:


And here is the view down the glacier as we began to wrap around and head back towards Chamoinx, very nice!


There are 6 variations on the Vallee Blanche route, of varying difficulty. They differ in how the top section is skied, and by now all of the routes had funneled into one so there were a fair number of tracks. Apparently we were on one of the routes of intermediate difficulty, the classic route goes through a lot of crevasse-riddled terrain so it cannot be skied until later in the season and the more difficult routes have south facing 45 degree sections that are dangerous to ski in sunny conditions due to the sun crust that forms and could result in a skier inadvertantly routing himself into a crevasse or off a cliff. Here is Robert headed out along one of the well-tracked traverse sections of our route:


We stopped at the Refuge du Requin (Shark Hut) which is beneath the Dent du Requin (Shark Tooth) formation. The hut wasn't in operation at the moment, but it did have a nice sunny patio and seemed to be a popular spot to stop for lunch. Robert told us that it opens in February, and described some very attractive-sounding backcountry intineraries that involved staying at the hut and skiing over into the Italian side of the alps and back during the day.


We enjoyed a delicious picnic in the sunshine on the patio, and looked out onto the glacier below where the Vallee Blanche glacier merged with another glacier to form the Mer du Glace (sea of ice):


After finishing our snacks we traversed out from the hut, and skied a nice steep descent to gain the Mer du Glace below. From here it was a long gentle downhill along the glacier, made a little more interesting by the sun crust which made turning difficult. Here are Garret and Robert leading it out as we ski down the glacier:


Just to keep things from getting dull Robert steered us across some snow bridges and along some gaping crevasses in order to show us some spots where we could ice climb in the crevasse, and eventually the terrain became a bit more difficult with combinations of rocks to avoid and crevasses to bypass. Here is a shot of one of the more memorable traverses which went along a steep, icy slope where w fall would have meant extracting yourself from the depths of a crevasse which disappeared into darkness. The skier in the middle of the shot is about to do the intimidating part.


Robert went first and assured us with a confident "C'est facile!" so we all followed, taking great care to look forward only and not divert my gaze down into the crevasse. Here is a shot looking back at the crevasse which fortunately did not swallow any of us:


The traverse is on the right of the photo, with the just-visible boulder forcing you to ski along a narrow track that is uncomfortably close to the icy slope down into the darkness. Thank heavens for momentum! From this point we had great views looking across the valley to the Petit Dru:


Apparently several years ago a huge section of the famous Bonatti route up the north face broke off, so the route can no longer be climbed. When the rock face seperated there was a party on the route, but luckily they happened to be just above the fracture line. I bet they had to change their underwear after that one!

After skiing a little further we reached the bottom of the glacier. Starting in late January it is possible to ski right down into Chamonix, but at this time of year our only option was to take a cable car up out of the valley (the cable car exists so that tourists can come down to see the glacier) and then take a cog-wheel train back town into Chamonix. We removed our skis and started hiking up the metal steps to the cable car base:


You might think it is strange that you need to hike up to the cable car, the reason is that when the cable car was installed in 1990 it reached the glacier, but in the 20 years since the glacier has receded so much that the top has dropped by 80 vertical meters. This was one of the most tangible demonstrations of global warming that I have witnessed, as we ascended the metal steps there were signs that denoted where the glacier level had been throughout the past 30 years. The accelerating nature of global warming was evident, as while the glacier had only dropped 5-10 meters in the decade from 1980 to 1990, the next 20 years had seen it drop an additional 70-80 meters with the current drop rate being 5 meters per year. Sucks! I hate global warming! Let's all stop creating CO2 so that we can keep skiing! I think we need to hold the next global warming summit at a ski resort, once the world's leaders get addicted to skiing they will have no choice to focus on enacting legislation to combat climate change.

We rode the cable car up to the train station where we had a good view up the valley and the glacier that we had just descended:


While we waited for the train we took a group photo, here we are:


After 20 minutes or so we boarded the cog-wheel train that whisked us back down into the valley below, where we disembarked and walked to the shuttle bus stop for the final leg of our trip back to the Aiguille du Midi cable car station:


Back at the cable car station Garret rushed off to the pub and we said our good byes to Robert who gave us his personal business card for when (not if) we return to Chamonix. If any gentle readers are headed to Chamonix and want a guide recommendation let me know and I will put you in touch with Robert, he was a great guide and when I asked him if he had ever had a client fall in a crevasse he said "Non!", but then grinned and added that he was probably just lucky.

Oh man, what an awesome day! After popping into the Aiguille du Midi office to pick up a guide book for Mont Blanc (next year?), we climbed into the Fiat, made one last stop at the Hapimag, and then headed back through the Mont Blanc tunnel (which has a 37 euro toll, yikes!) towards Milan. As we neared Milan the thick Italian fog returned which made driving quite difficult, but we eventually found the airport where we were staying at the onsite Sheraton (chosen to maximize sleep the next morning so that we could roll out of bed and walk straight into the terminal to catch our 7:00am flight).

We made it to the airport by 7:30pm, but then the quest to find gas for the rental car turned into a 2 hour epic of driving slowly through the thick fog while Italian drivers tail gated us and flashed their high beams at us, finding two unstaffed "24 hour" gas stations in a row that only accepted cash (as conveyed by handwritten notes to the effect that the credit card part of the payment machine was out of order), a long search for an ATM, plenty of wrong turns, an inadvertent tour through the "Family Fun Center" parking complex, and the eventual purchase of gasoline. The best part was that when we finally had cash to buy gas we put in 50 euros and it only ended up being 36 euros to fill the tank, and since the machine didn't give change we ended up paying about 1.5 times more for the gas than we should have, which is probably more than the rental car place would have charged us if we had just returned the car with a half full tank. How do you say "stinker" in Italian? Oh well, 2 hours spent exploring the foggy roads around Milan isn't the worst thing you could do on a Sunday night, molto bene!!!