Preparation so far...

As my mother will tell me, "you need to train for something like that...", perhaps overstating the obvious. I've been on the ropes with achilles and ankle problems for the better part of 2-3 years now. The good news is that some minor surgery back in December seems to have solved this. I spent most of the winter in Chamonix, it's easier to count the time I wasn't here in fact. Getting back into shape was always going to be a long road, when I look at some of my pictures from my triathlon days its hard to imagine what happened.

One of the highlights of the winter was skiing the North Face of Mt. Blanc, we couldn't have hit a better day. Not only was there little wind on the summit, a micro-system had dumped about 60 cm of fresh snow. It was a great day, dropped by helicopter at about 3800 m, then about a 3 hour hike to the top. Followed by almost a 4000 m descent as we skied right down to Chamonix.

I think the turning point, meaning when I actually felt like I was getting in shape, was when I rode the Route des Grandes Alpes with a good friend of mine, Guy Townsend. We rode from Megeve to Menton in three days. The last of the three being the toughest, 200 km and just under 5,000 m of climbing, which took us about 12.5 hours. Man was my ass sore after that...

Since then, I've done a ton of great climbs, both classic rock and mountaineering. Some memories that stand out are the Aiguille de Midi to Aiguille du Plan route, a first test of my pre-acclimatisation and where I witnessed some classic mountain stupidity by a pair of British tourists. There had just been an accident in Chamonix so crevasses and general safety was at the forefront of my thoughts, not that they are ever that far...

Here's how it went:

Me: there's alot of crevasses here, you may want to put some distance between you

Them: Ok, thanks. Do you know if you can get to the refuge from here?

Me: which refuge?

Them: There's more than one?

Tchouky: yes, and the snow is not stable. Your only way out from here is to turn around and go back.

Them: Ok, thanks.

About an hour later we watched as the mountain rescue helicopter came to pick them up and all I could think was perhaps Darwin did have a point...

Early July was a great indicator that we were getting ready, the Kuffner Ridge in the Mont Blanc massif. It runs up to the summit of Mt. Maudit and is a mixed of snow and rock. The summit of Maudit is 4465 m. After a shocking 1 am wake up, we left the Refuge des Cosmiques. The route would take us across the Glacier du Geant and back round up to Maudit. Unfortunately, the weather had come in a bit which prevented us from bolting on the climb to Mt. Blanc. I think we were both surprised as we passed most of the other climbers and found ourselves back at the refuge for about 10 am. Needless to say, I had a pretty good nap that afternoon. Another classic alpine safety moment as we pass a pair of climbers on the way down: "Phil, you didn't tell me it was going to be this hard!" says the second in the group. I start thinking to myself, is there anyone I really don't like so much that would drag them up Mt. Blanc and tell them it was easy?

So those are the highlights, toss in a bunch more riding (followed the TdF, a great weekend in Cannes), climbing and altitude work and I'm starting to think I'll be ready. I've just finished setting up my altitude tent so all my sleeps from now on will be from 2000-6500m.

D