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Trient - Entreves - Crieff

Trient - Orsieres - Val Ferret

Fine and restful it was at the Trient hut, our day of strewthdom past; who could tell what awaited us in days to come? Lounging in the sunshine on the terrace we admired the circling peaks that we’d been too knackered to appreciate the previous day; and of course our Leader was particularly taken with the sniggerfulness of Le Pissoir and its neighbour, Aiguille du ditto, so I have added a special little bulge to this map in his memory.

But time was pressing and there was much to do, for we had to get away south to Italy and the lure of the pointy stuff near the Dent du Géant (Dente del Gigante) which had been in our sights way back when we’d first been trundling up the Mer de Glace.

So, down to Champex, 4829ft, a pretty lake, strawberries beside the track, yumyum; thence to Orsières, 2913ft, ghastly low altitude, heavy air, too hot; a track up to a wee col at 8163ft (ah! back to a decent altitude where you can breathe) from which we followed the Ferret Burn all the way to Entrèves, 4291ft. No hurry, for it was a most pleasant stroll through meadows starry with tiny bright alpines - gentians, intensely blue, and many others whose names we didn’t know, each one of which would cost considerable bucks at a Garden Centre. By the time we reached Entrèves it was 10 p.m., and had been dark for some time.

“Go and find a place” said the Leader, fixing me with a stern eye, “where we can sleep, and where there’s a bench for us to set up the primus and cook our spaghetti.”

Yes, we were in Italy now, and I had to do the speaking. Um. All You Need to Know in Italy had struck me as nigh on useless. I’d memorised some salient numbers and requests enough to do una camera per quattro persone per una notte, and seen that much of Italian was close enough to Latin to make reasonable guesses, but when had Cicero needed a bench to set up his primus?

Val Ferret - Entreves - Chamonix

In the darkness of the night, all the doors were shut, there were no lights to be seen, nor any living person. “I’ll see what I can find,” said I, with the confident stare of one who is thinking of running away. And off I strode round the corner.

And looked up at the lintel of a door, and saw the message:

C L U B   A L P I N O   I T A L I A N O

Yes! I knocked, and presently the door opened and a woman of formidable aspect looked me up and down, and her lip curled, and she said “You English. You want a room and cook on primus, no?” I knew she had instantly assessed the Britsqualor of my grubby crumpled clothing and did not approve. “Sì, signora, ma non siamo Inglesi, siamo Scozzesi.” And she thawed, just a little; for up there at the north end of the valley, deep in what used to be Savoy, there was a desire for independence that paralleled the similar desire in Scotland; the local dialect was a French-Italian mix, and over the border in France there was a Free Savoy movement as well. Not that I knew this at the time, but it probably helped our present needs. “You come see,” said she and took me to a room with four bunks and a bench.

I went and fetched Joe, Allen and Mac, who were impressed. For a minute or two.

In the morning, food shopping, and coffee and gigantic ripe juicy peaches at a café. And then up to the Torino hut, 11073ft. There was a cable car but Joe snarled that it was for skiing trash, and a waste of good money, and we could easily walk up there; so up the equivalent of a double-Munro we plodded, sulking.

Joe had long ago told us his favourite climbing-hut-toilet story, about this girl whose money had fallen out of her pocket and disappeared down the cliff face where all the evacuant fell, and whose friends had to abseil down the cliff to collect as many notes as they could find from among the  varied shite lodged there. He told this story quite often, with many a snigger. I wondered, when at the end of a stinking dark corridor I found a noisome place with a hole in the floor, and a long pole with a wooden disc at the end, to push the more solid stuff down the hole, where it plummeted into a measureless void, was this the legendary sniggersome toilet? It was possible, but I didn’t want to know, for I was feeling, ever so slightly, hints of Montezuma’s revenge. Those giant juicy peaches had been a mistake.

Rochefort Ridge

Soon it was clear that I was going to have to stay near the noisome hole next day, and early in the morning the rest set off for the Rochefort Ridge.

With the passage of time, the peaches finished their deadly work, and I was able to wander away from the hut, up to where I could view the Rochefort Ridge and the Gigante behind it. There were tiny dots on the snow below the ridge (green arrows in photo): were those my friends? Going or coming back? No way of knowing.  Off to the left, the cluster of the Chamonix aiguilles, and the Mer de Glace, and the Dru – we had come nearly full circle. We’d be starting back next day, so I thought I might as well sort through the rucksack ready for the journey.

It wasn’t a difficult job, but it revealed a problem: no train ticket. Not even after many increasingly desperate searches. What could have happened to it? I’d never taken it from where it was tucked away right at the bottom, nothing had fallen out during any of our adventures; it had to be there. But it wasn’t. Maybe someone nicked it in a hut? If so, they’d left the passport and tiny bit of cash.

looking back at Chamonix aiguilles from Italy

Obviously, I must get out there on the road, stick out my thumb, get lifts. I’d hitched many weekends Crieff to Glencoe, because that was the only way to get there, and it normally took about an hour and a half. How far was Entrèves to Crieff? 1,000 miles? 1,500? I didn’t know. Crieff-Glencoe was around 70 miles, I could do several of those in a day, say 300 miles a day, four or five days, maybe. With no money and hardly any food? Wearing heavy warm clothes, carrying ice-axe and crampons? Probably stinking (when was the last time a wash had been possible)? Not great at the language? OK, say a week . . . And so on. What was the worst case scenario? Walking all the way, say 50 miles a day, three to four weeks. But it wouldn’t come to that. Of course not.

Mac offered to come with me, since he was thumbing his way back home anyway, and had more experience of European hitching than I did (i.e. more than none). Though solo is usually faster, and girl gets a lift easier than boy I was grateful for his offer: he was better at French than I was, and had found a number of free dosses in the past.

Entreves and Gran Paradiso

The others were off to the Gran Paradiso, a little farther south – from the Torino hut you could see it, far away down the valley. Good luck, see you back home; and so we parted. We had the primus, half a small packet of spaghetti and enough cash for the ferry.

To Geneva, doss in a museum; walk - no lifts - over the Jura mountains, doss at side of road, hungry; fast lift to Paris (chap racing the mother-in-law to Orly airport), doss in park, climbing over railings after dark; escape shouting official in morning, hungry, short, slow lifts, press nose to window of épicerie, impressive burst of saliva, Jaguar slows down, speeds on past, bastard, may your exhaust drop off, see, from a distance, him boarding last ferry of the day, can’t get there in time, bastarding dastard, doss in waiting room, HUNGRY; first ferry in morning, rough weather, people leave restaurant in droves to puke, we cruise around the leftovers, yum yum YUM; England, Mac and I part company, first car stops and chap says “Where to?” “Oxford.” “That’s where I’m going, hop in.” Brilliant, how I love England!

To my sister’s, where I tell a little about the last wee while, but can see she thinks it’s all lies. At 2 a.m. I creep silently down to where the biscuit tin lives, and stuff my face. In the morning I lie in bed and hear her: “Funny, I thought I’d got – where are they?” and feel ashamed, but not very.

On northwards and the hitching gets steadily easier, and at last there I am in Crieff, going up the steps to the door of my digs, door opens, and there is Mamouchka, my Polish fellow lodger, and I’m thinking how entertaining she’ll find my stories.

Big smile from Mamouchka. “Ah, good that you have come! Chain pull in lavatory is stuck, you mend it with axe.”