said the owner of the refuge, as his expression changed from smile to shock. “Too dangerous. Steep. Snow.”
Sorry, I’m getting ahead of myself. Let me rewind to the beginning of the day.
I woke up to a completely dry tent, despite all the mist coating everything last night. It’s the little victories that make a day good, haha. It was frigid when I woke up, so I stayed in my sleeping bag until the sun came up and the greenhouse effect of my rainfly made the space a habitable temperature.
Everything flew into my backpack and I was ready to hike by 9. I wanted to get a head start on today–this is one of the few sections of the HRP that the guidebook rates as “E” for exceptional, or extremely challenging.
The first hurdle I came to was the “Passage d’Ortege”, basically a narrow trail along a vertical cliff face, with a cable to hold on to so you don’t plummet 500 metres to a quick and painful demise. To make it even better, I had to squeeze around about 20 people that were going the other way on this passage, ha! They were going really slow, but I can’t blame them. When I got to the end, there were some people waiting there. “Is it easy or difficult?” They asked.
“Piece of Cake,” I said, and they both laughed.
I carried on and made it to a perch just above the Refuge Arremoulit, where I thought was a fine place to have a cup of coffee.
Then, I made my way down to the refuge. Most everyone had already left for the day. I admired the beauty of the glacial water just outside their front door.
Then, as I was surveying the route ahead and checking my maps, the refuge owner saw me. “Bonjour!” he said, in a very welcoming way. “Bonjour,” I replied. He started asking me a question in French, but I had to use my trusty “Je ne se pas Francais” (I dont know French) response. “I am headed for Col du Palas.”
That’s when his face changed, ha! It went from welcoming and happy, to shocked and fearful for my life. “It cannot be done.” He said. My english, not very good. Come” he said with a gesture.
He led me to a younger blonde girl about my age, who knew good English. I was jealous right away that she got to work in such an outstanding place.
“You are doing Col du Palas? It cannot be done. It is impossible. With crampons and ice axe, maybe.” She described an alternate route that is much less dangerous (which I knew about, but not one to be discouraged from a way just because of difficulty or danger, I was pretty set on the official, hard HRP route.
“Is there any way to avoid the hard parts of Col du Palas?” I asked.
She said, “no. It is fine up to Col du Palas, but then, it is very steep, and there is heavy snow pack below the second pass after that, the Port de Lavadan is a V that you have to climb up and over, and then the other side is snow as well. Also, there is a hole/gap between the snow and the rock of the V, perhaps 30m deep. We cannot recommend people to do this route because of these dangers, and we do not want to hear in the news tonight that a man fell in the hole.”
I laughed about the last part. “Thank you for the information,” I said, and we parted ways. I knew which way I was going!
I made it up to Port de Peyre Saint Martin and set up my tent behind a rock wall, to break the wind. I went to bed in the haze and woke up in the clear. What a day! Definitely an “E” exceptional rating from me.