Road.Ramble
  • Home
  • Media
  • Blog
  • Contact

Rr. Blog

How NOT to Summit an Alp

16/7/2015

0 Comments

 
Panoramic photograph of the haute savoie and french Alps from the summit of Mont Charvin
Our adventures with mountains have been consistently...adventurous; we appear to have an unparalleled ability to underestimate them yet bounce right back, hungry for more. Here's our latest, featuring Mont Charvin in the French Alps, presented in an informative, "how (not) to" format:
1. Forsake a nutritious evening meal for mayonnaise on stale bread, because you're too lazy to cook.
2. Forsake a sensible, pre-sunrise start for a late morning one, because you're busy cooking a big breakfast to make up for the inadequacies of the night before.
Early morning sunshine silhouettes green mountains and illuminates the trees in the foreground at mont charvin in the french alps
3. Laugh in the sticky face of suncream. It's not even that sunny, and the walk will only take a few hours.
A female mountaineer stands in the grassy meadow in the foreground before embarking on the steep trek to the summit of Mont Charvin in the background on a clear blue sky day.
4. Assume that the initial gentle meadow amble is the pattern for the whole walk.
5. Think you're a mountaineer, because you foraged two sticks and you can stand with one foot on a rock, staring into the distance.
6. Forsake the described route in your guide book that meanders around the mountains, for glory and the summit!
Man points stick at the camera in the foreground of a grassy meadow with a fur tree bank behind and in the background is a mountain ridge and blue sky
Man poses with sticks for the camera in the foreground of a grassy meadow with a fur tree bank behind and in the background is a mountain ridge and blue sky
7. Ignore that everyone is descending the mountain via your ascent.
8. Hang around at the summit taking selfies, despite already tripling the proposed time to this point.
young woman posing for a camera on the summit of a mountain with more mountains in the background
young man and woman posing for a camera on the summit of a mountain with more mountains in the background
young man and woman posing for a camera on the summit of a mountain with more mountains in the background
young man and woman posing for a camera on the summit of a mountain with more mountains in the background
young woman posing for a camera on the summit of a mountain with more mountains in the background
9. Ignore the Via Ferrata warning signs on the 'descent'.
10. On discovering to your surprise that your descent is via Via Ferrata, do it anyway. Endeavour to take sticks with you.
Young woman on the walking descent of a mountain posing for a camera by waving a stick in the air, mountains surrounding the scene
Young man on the walking descent of a mountain posing for a camera, mountains surrounding the scene
Young woman stands on the edge of a mountain valley with the rock rising out of the other side with endless mountain ridges in the background and blue sky above
a marmot rising onto into hind legs on the edge of a rocky scree
11. At the bottom of the distinctly hairy Via Ferrata 'descent', relax safe in the knowledge that you are nearly done... Ha. 

12. Stop for about 20 minutes being silent and still while you stalk a den of marmots, waiting for an opportunity to capture the moment. Discover that your camera lens is nowhere near capable of taking a high resolution zoom shot but say bollocks to it and take a fuzzy one regardless, 'cos aren't they so cute! 
13. Try to assimilate with the native beasts, lose your gruntle when they try and eat your shorts. Is it common knowledge that goats eat anything? Amber says, yes! In revenge, eat their cheese. 
Heard of goats on the mountain side with a young woman passing by and the background is lined with the silhouette of a mountain ridge and blue sky
Nearly done being a gargantuan assumption... A mere nine hours of walking and we found our way back to the car after what was a really beautiful and fulfilling, if not entirely conventionally undertaken and certainly inadequately prepared, mountain climb. Despite our incompetence, we TOTALLY topped out the mountain anyway. 2,409 meters up there we stood on the peak of Mont Charvin, admiring the full panorama and absorbing the air, but more importantly, we revelled in dicking about on the summit. 

Good day.  
Young woman stands on the edge of the peak of Mont Charvin in the french alps looking across the vast mountainous terrain towards Mont Blanc and the snowcapped mountain massif on clear sunny day
Sun setting over a mountain ridge with the silhouettes in the foreground of a young woman and trees.
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Photos & Videos

    Archived Pages

    Rambles
    The Sunday Send
    ​​​

    Categories

    All
    Climbing
    Foraging
    Nature
    Travel
    Van Life
    Walking

    RSS Feed

RoadRamble© - Amber Thornton & Sam Hunter 2015
  • Home
  • Media
  • Blog
  • Contact