Showing posts with label French Alps. Show all posts
Showing posts with label French Alps. Show all posts

Friday, June 16, 2017

When The Best Plan is No Plan for Climbing in the Alps Pregnant

About this last time last year, my husband Steve and I began planning an epic, albeit ambitious, trip: two weeks in France and Switzerland, with objectives to climb Mont Blanc, the Matterhorn, and the Eiger (plus Mönch and Jungfrau, why not, while we were in the area!). We had been training together with the Mountain Tactical Institute's "Alpine Rock Climbing Training Program," and we were feeling good, strong, ready! Those weighted step-ups, sandbag get-ups and DW Specials were worth the suffering!


The whole plan was sketched out, including a backup climbing order if the weather didn't line up, I had all of the phone numbers to begin reserving space in the mountain huts... and then... we found out I was pregnant.

Thursday, September 5, 2013

Climbing in Mammut's Motherland

Coming in from Chamonix the drizzling day before my wife Alysse and I were bombarded by images of “it” everywhere. But for the whole of that damp day we had to be contented with six dollar cups of Zermatt coffee and seeing “it” only on kitchen spoons, jigsaw puzzles, envelope openers, and other kitsch—the real “it” remained lost in the clouds. Now gazing out of our tent in the clear blue morning, we were greeted by the signature lines of the mountain that made Switzerland synonymous with climbing—the Matterhorn. And though the weather in combination with our travel schedule put the kabosh on a climb of its fine lines, Alysse and I managed to salvage the day with some rock climbing on the Riffelhorn, enjoying an excellent vantage point on this Swiss icon, and an impeccable wrap-up to two weeks of summertime ice, rock, and alpine climbing blended up in the way that only the European Alps can provide.

Looking out the tent in the evening...