At 2:30am my alarm went off- and so did the alarms of the other 19 people in our room; the 20 people in the room next door and in the Guide’s room.
Cue a mad rush for breakfast and equipment, then a decent by torchlight of the metal ladders – which was entertaining!
This was definitely a morning for the big gloves – with the nerve damage in my hands (caused by chemo) I was particularly careful with the cold – and the gloves were a good piece of kit to have.
We crossed the glacier to the Tete Blanche 3,707m (12,159 ft), however, Kathy’s forecast was correct and the rain arrived, complete with thunder and lightning.
After 2 hours in one direction, with heavy hearts, we made the decision to turn around, as we could not risk the Stockji glacier in bad visibility, and couldn’t cross a route above steep slabs in the wet.
So we trekked all the way back to the Bertol hut, then all the way down to the high valley from day 5, then turned towards Arolla.
From there we caught two buses and two trains, and arrived in Zermatt a day early.
Once we had showered (bliss!), changed and inspected the blisters – ouch!
……we got together for a lovely dinner, via a quick pic of a cloudy Matterhorn
So that was it!
We missed just the final day – though with the storms it was absolutely the right decision
I am so pleased to have achieved what I did – just a year on from completing treatment – and have raised lots of money for good causes too.
Thank you for all your support, and to Challenge Cancer Through Adventure for making this possible
Claire
XXX