Frostbites

After getting back from the North East job, I had planned to climb one of Monte Rosa peaks with the Sponsor who had charged me to guide two of his colleagues.
We left on Saturday morning, and within an hour I started having serious issues about the women capacity to do the climb the next day. They were slow, not trained enough, overweight and prone to complain a lot. I tried to cheer them up by telling them stories about the mountain, took some weight off their backpacks, but I wasn’t optimistic about the next day. I realised quickly that the Sponsor only agreed to have the two of them with us because he owed them (they had recently performed some successful surgery someone in the family or something like that).
Mind you, it’s not like I didn’t like them or I was hostile or anything: it’s just that high mountain is a tough place. Whatever.
Struggling through the wind, we got to the first refuge, and although we should have climbed 30 more minutes to the second one, I knew already that the ladies were so afraid of the wind that they would have had serious trouble going on. So I got it and explained the situation to the keeper, a cute guy with impressive green eyes. He told me they were almost full but he knew me by name and would manage to find some place for us. I was a bit stunned that he knew me, but thanked him and added that if there was little place I could leave the ladies here and climb up and get them in the morning, just to let me know, but he told me he would find a solution.
So we stayed, and Green Eyes really pampered us even though he WAS busy (they were over the full capacity of the refuge). I made friends with a waitress which may or may not be Green Eyes sister (same eyes, same hair, same smile…), tried to give a hand where I thought I could help and so on. In the meanwhile the ladies and the Sponsor (who had brought along another man as well) kept saying GE was interested in me..
GE ended finding us a pretty room! And I’m sure that he put someone else on the floor in order to make room for us, but hey, I didn’t complain. During the evening, GE’s sister (assuming they are indeed siblings) asked me if I was training to be a guide! I was totally proud of this, but of course it isn’t so and I had to say no..

I got up at 4.30 and it took me almost half an hour to persuade the ladies that, if they wanted to do the climb, we were already late! We had breakfast, GE wished me luck for the day, I flashed him my best smile and out we were. During the night, however, I had a bad surprise: my period was early! And my period is the only thing that gives me problems in high altitude, ouch!
The day was pretty cold, the ladies were slow, and I was freezing. By the time we reached 4,000 mt altitude, I knew we wouldn’t make it, but I was hoping to climb a smaller peak in order to give them at least some satisfaction! 50 meters below the peak, however, I started hearing a weird noise. Since I know a bit about mountain sickness, I paid attention: one of the ladies made a strange noise when breathing. This could only mean she was going to have pulmonary oedema. I already knew the weather was too bad for helicopters, so we could only try to climb down as fast as we could and hope. It was bad, because my hands and feet were freezing, but I knew we couldn’t stop. I went real fast, trying to move my hands as much as possible and praying that my feet would carry me long enough. I almost run, slowing down only to pass crevasses, and we went down to 3700 mt so fast that the lady was fine. I explained her my concerns (I did not want her to panic before), and she said I was probably right and thanked me.
By this time, my hands were hurting badly and I took 5 minutes to warm them a bit. I was still concerned by my feet, but at least they did not hurt, so I thought it was better to get to the refuge and take my hiking boots of to heat them. And so we did.
But when we got there I knew my feet were not right, I heated them but had very little sensibility, and they hurt badly at the same time. At least I did not see much of GE. Later in the day we climbed the rest of our way down, and it was tough on my feet. In addiction, I also crossed paths with B. and his wife, but by the time I was so in pain I couldn’t care less. GE sister, by the way, asked if she could join us so she didn’t have to go the whole way on her own, so we chatted a little and agreed to go for drinks during my vacations.

When we finally got down I was in such pain I could barely talk. Both of my toes had experienced severe frostbites, and the other light frostbites.
It took me almost a week to walk again, and I still cannot wear anything but sneakers or flip flops….. but I still think of Green Eyes!