The going gets so tough!

The village of Champoluc is very charming with its old chalets and our hotel is right on the main square. We left today from the ski-room and after a 5 minutes walk were at the foot of a little path going up the forest. My mountain guide and I put the skins on our skis and set off towards the Perrin Pass. At first it was  up an icy narrow path like yesterday, where technique was important so as not to slip and fall. After 50 minutes, we reached a plateau with a lovely little chapel.


Another very short burst brought us to a lovely little hamlet very beautifully restored where we had our first pause of the day. There was a little church and it was so lovely.




We were however only just over one hour and 400 vertical meters into our climb of a total of 1050 meters. From then on it went up gently first along a road, then up a meadow and finally next to a little stream that we had to cross to go on up towards our goal. I was very proud to have managed to do so without falling into the water, which would not have been very funny... Second pause for hot tea and rest!


We pushed along up a steeper hill and it was horrendous going. The base layer of the snow was like sand and we would either slip back or sideways. We were unbelievably slow and tired. It was like going up 3 steps, going back 2. But, again I thought about the children that I hope to help and the reason for doing this challenge and again it gave me strength. I just went on and on. At the top of the hill, we were both exhausted, but I just wanted to go on and push myself another 150 meters uphill so that we would have climbed 1050 meters. We stopped at the foot of a rock which looked like an indian american totem and we both named it "extreme mother".

 I think that we were right to push ourselves, as not only did we see three chamois (mountain goats) which was so beautiful, but had the only decent powder of the holidays on these 150 meters!! 


The rest of the skiing was done in terribly unstable snow (the sand base layer), and we even had to put the skins back for another 45 minutes to reach the piste and ski back to the hotel as there was not enough snow to ski through the forest.