We woke up this morning 5 AM with fog, rain and strong wind outside the Torino Hut. So instead of climbing the Tête d’Entrèves as planned, we took the first lift down to Entrèves again and then the bus via Courmayeur to Chamonix.

Here we bought some more equipment for our Mont Blanc climb. There was not much more to do since it was raining all day (meaning lots of new snow above 4000 m). Fortunately, the weather forecast says we’ll have a window with clear sky for our summit attempt during the night from Tuesday to Wednesday. But first we have to climb the 1800 m altitude difference to the Gouter hut tomorrow and then the last 1000 meters on Wednesday to reach the top of Mont Blanc.

We also just met our second guide: Julian from Argentina. The South American dream team is complete!

I’ll post the next time Wednesday evening – hopefully with a summit picture.

Today we took a bus from Villeneuve to Courmayeur and another one to Entrèves at 1370 m. From there a lift took us to the Torino Hut on 3371 m – 2000 m altitude difference in 15 minutes!

We were supposed to do some exercises on the glacier today, but it started to rain so we stayed in the hut for some theory. Hoping for better weather tomorrow to climb to Tête d’Entrèves at 3551 m.

Aldo and Philipp are playing chess now. We’ll get dinner in half an hour. Think I’ll have some red whine with the dinner. No TV here to watch the Euro final. Anyway, we’ll support the locals – forza Italia!

It’s day 2 of our 2012 trip to the Alps. Unfortunately our fourth man Conrad had to cancel the trip due to a rebelling tooth, so it was only Friederike, Philipp and I who met in Villeneuve in the Italian Aosta valley on Friday. And Aldo, our Peruvian guide (who lives in Münster).
After sorting our equipment, we packed a daypack and took a taxi to Pont at 1950 m and started to walk to our first base, Rifugio Vittorio Emmanuele (2735 m) at the foot of Gran Paradiso, Italy’s highest mountain. Here we were going stay for two nights, and we were lucky to get a room for ourselves which is complete luxury in an overcrowded cottage like this.

We went to bed early Friday night, because at 3.30 our alarm went off and at 4.30 we were already ascending towards Gran Paradiso with headlamps on – together with between 180 other mountaineers this day.

It was an unusually warm night, and we soon started sweating under our many layers of clothes. After one hour the glacier started, so we took our crampons and climbing harnesses on. The next hours were demanding for me – not acclimatised to the high altitude and approaching a 4-thousander on the second day, but I somehow forced myself to continue.

Shortly after 7 AM we reached the only technically difficult passage at Gran Paradiso (2nd degree climbing), just below the summit. We had to wait at this bottleneck for at least 20 minutes for climbers in front on their way up and others returning from the summit. I enjoyed those minutes as they helped me to restitute and bring down my heart-rate. At 7.45 we reached the top of Italy at 4061 m, gathering around a (O bella Italia!) madonna statue for the summit photo.

As I’m writing this (Saturday, 5 PM) we’re back at the Refugio, just had a power nap and preparing for dinner now. I have to wait until tomorrow until I am back in civilisation to post this.

Stay tuned!

Today I would like to present Mr. Nansen to you. Mr. Nansen (or Herr Nansen in German/Norwegian) is a polar bear I met a few weeks ago. He loves the Arctic and would like to try out some mountaineering, so we decided we could do some trips together.

Mr. Nansen has got the same surname as the famous Norwegian Arctic explorer Fridtjof Nansen who is his big hero. His dream is to become the first polar bear who reaches the South Pole.

I don’t know Mr. Nansen’s first name. He is a bit old-fashioned, and we are not on a first name basis yet. He says, that is “because we haven’t slept in the same sleeping bag for ten months yet.” (I guess you have to be Norwegian to understand this.)

Anyway, Mr. Nansen is a very cool bear with a good sense of humour. Despite his young age, he has got a lot of experience from the Arctic region, having travelled mainly around Svalbard and Franz Josef Land. On the other hand he is very inexperienced in the mountains. Until recently, he said, he preferred to stay at sea level, “because that’s where you find most seals. They are rarely seen up in the mountains, you know.” Now he wants to go to the mountains because he has heard that there are other bears in the mountains which are brown – which he says he won’t believe until he has seen one.

Mr. Nansen is going to join me on the Mont Blanc trip. He couldn’t afford the plane ticket, so I will smuggle him in my hand luggage. He said he would pay me back in Swiss chocolate. Let’s see how Mr. Nansen tackles the high altitude in the Alps!

It’s time to reveal the destination my first trip this summer. So what’s the plan? On Friday I will fly to Milan where I will meet my good friend Conrad. From there we’ll drive together to the Aosta valley, close to the border to France, where our tour starts. The trip is a high-altitude mountaineering training arranged by the DAV Summit Club – pretty much like the one at Großglockner last year. The other two participants are Friederike and Philipp who were also part of the group last year.

On our second day we will directly climb a four-thousander: Gran Paradiso (4061 m), the highest mountain in Italy. On day 3 we will proceed to the Torino Hut (Rifugio Torino, 3375 m) where we will have glacier training. On day 4 we will first climb the Tête d’Entrèves at 3551 m, before we continue to Chamonix and prepare for the highlight of this tour: the climb of Mont Blanc, the highest mountain of the Alps at 4810 m.

Our route is called the “Voie Des Cristalliers” or “Voie Royale.” We will first ascend on Tuesday from the tramway stop Nid d’Aigle (Eagle’s nest, 2372 m) to the Goûter cabin (3017 m) where we will spend the night. Then on Wednesday very early in the morning we will break up and try to reach the summit via Dôme du Goûter, the Vallot cabin and L’arrête des Bosses – everything in case the weather is on our side. We don’t have any extra day, so keep your fingers crossed for good weather conditions!

It’s done! After two months of work, a lot of trial and error, some frustration, several nightshifts, but also a lot of fun, my website mountainpolarbear.com is ready to be shown to the world.

Why is the website called mountainpolarbear.com? Well, I’m a certified polar bear (see the Svalbard travel report) who prefers to travel to Arctic regions or to climb mountains. Mountaineering will also be the main topic of my travel blog this summer, as my first trip in July goes to the French Alps, and the second one to the Russian Caucasus Mountains. Stay tuned – if you like you can get an e-mail alert when I update my blog.

Unfortunately, the photo galleries are not finished yet. I wanted to wait with the website launch until they are ready, but since I will go on holiday next Friday and want to start blogging, I have to add the galleries later.

What is finished already are the travel reports from five of my recent trips, illustrated with a few snapshots and some amusing youtube videos. Just take a look yourself, and if you’d like to leave a comment, feel free to write something on the guestbook page. Looking forward to your feedback!

Your mountain polar bear
Stephan