Somewhere in Italy, we descended from the third in a series of cable cars at about 3500 metres. We put on our glacier gear and tentatively headed into the furrow in the snow which led off to the other peaks. We had not trained on snow, so had no idea what it would be like. We had never tied ourselves together, and made some inexpert knots to save one another from dropping too far into hidden crevasses which lurked below the snowy mountain frosting.
Downhill we tramped, finding the going remarkably simple for the altitude. “Piece of piss,” I thought to myself after half an hour without incident, rescue or frostbite. We turned around to climb back to the cable car some time later, happy with our reconnaisance.
Uphill. Later in the day when the crisp tracks in the snow left by other alpinists had begun to melt. Legs would disappear under the squishy snow. Breathing became at first taxing, and then impossible. My nose had long been out of action, but my lungs became inoperable too. Each small rise summoned the depths of my lungs into my mouth. The wheezing turned to panting, then to rasping. My heart was hammering in my temples, my mouth was gaping wide in a forlorn effort to shepherd more of the oxygen depleted air into my lungs.
At least it took my mind off the blisters on each heel and the agony of walking in solid plastic boots. On our return to the bottom of the valley at about 1300m, we built a fire. We warmed up, found new areas of sunburn from the ferocious alipne sun and planned our next acclimitisation. Perhaps we could acclimitise to the altitude by simply drinking hot chocolate two miles above sea level. Or maybe in our sleep.
The weather turned grim today, so we emerged from our tents into a valley full of cloud and rain. We decided not to ascend today. We built a very big fire, and nursed our wounds.