Tour Monte Rosa, stage 1
Champoluc to Alagna
Stage 1/6
photo by Andy Astfalck
With a team of four we decided to run around the Monte Rosa Massif, covering a distance of 170km and 11,000m ascent in 6 days. We battled extreme weather conditions, detours due to landslides, hypothermia, sickness and injuries. We worked as a team and were determined to finish together. This is our journey, part 1/6 from Champoluc to Alagna.
Sunday August 2,
The day of our first stage. I wake up feeling tired. That is not the way I want to feel before heading off for a six day trail run through and over the Italian and Swiss mountains, which I am sure is going to be the hardest thing I have ever done.
It is not so much the hundred and seventy kilometres or the long hours I am worried about, but the 11,000m of elevation is something I am not used to living in Netherlands, probably the flattest country in the world. Also not having been able to travel, to anything resembling mountains for the past months due to Covid, does not help either. And up till now, I had not even considered the impact of the altitude we were going to run and sleep at.
Coming from a country below sea level, starting above 1,600m going up to over 2,800m everyday, sometimes twice a day, I soon came to learn that the body struggles to adjust to these quick changes, making the days even tougher than I could have ever anticipated. Only at the end of the trip, I started to realise how much of an impact the altitude has had on me…
THE MORNING
The alarm goes off at six thirty AM. All four of us, Nils, Christof, Karen and I, wake up but not many words are spoken. We are concentrated packing our rucksacks, checking final things: “Do I have everything I need? Do I really need to take this with me or could I leave it to safe weight. How will I fit everything I need for six days in a ten litre pack?”
The same thoughts I had at home over the past week when my pack was lying on my living room floor in my apartment in Amstelveen with all the stuff I wanted to take or wasn’t sure about whether to take with me or not, lying next to it. The closer we got to our departure, the more stuff got removed from the floor and my packing list, until what was left were, what I estimated to be the essentials for this trip, weighing around four and a half kilograms.
These same last minute thoughts went through my head again waking up in Champoluc on the day of our first stage, just before heading off on our six day adventure. It is hard to pack when you don’t really know what to expect. Especially in the mountains the weather conditions can change rapidly, which we discovered soon enough. We went from hot and sunny with over thirty six degrees to battling extreme rain showers and heavy winds with temperatures below five degrees Celsius all in one day.
As usual I check my Garmin stats on Garmin Connect in the morning to see how I slept and how ready I am for the day. Something I have got used to ever since I got the Fenix 6 which tells me my ‘body battery’ and average heart rate overnight. Unfortunately the stats I receive on the morning of our first stage do not put me at ease. On Garmin Connect I read that my average heart rate overnight was almost sixty, which is about twenty heart beats higher than usual. My body battery with only twenty two percent is also quite shocking and lower than I have ever seen it in the morning. Not the hundred percent that is normal after a goodnight sleep and definitely not what I was hoping for at the start of this trip.
I have tapered enough so it can’t be exhaustion. Although I am not feeling that nervous I can only imagine it might be nerves then. Only later during our trip I discover this was already the impact of altitude, although we were only at 1,600m at the time.
At breakfast I try to eat as much as possible as I know I am going to need the energy. I order scrambled eggs with bacon, yoghurt with muesli, of course a ‘brioche alla crèma’ as we are in Italy and three espresso’s which I hope will help me wake up.
The tiredness does not fulfil me with great confidence but there is no way back now. I am sure that once we start running I will get my mind in the game and the body will wake up. Meanwhile I also hope I make it through the day and will sleep better the next night, and all will be fine.
THE START
We leave the hotel around after eight thirty AM and park the car just outside Champoluc town. The guys feel a bit strange leaving the car on the parking in between the campervans for the next six days, but we do not have any other choice. We will be back here at the end of the trip once we have made it around the Monte Rosa massif and have covered about 170 kilometres and 11,000m of ascent.
Our first stage starts with a climb. I notice Karen, Nils and Christof are full of energy on this first day and start off with a strong pace. As I wasn’t that confident to begin with, it worried me a bit. I know I have trained really hard for this trip. My VO2 max has gone up with about ten percent over the past weeks and my base pace is a lot faster than it was. My training stats show me that I should be fit enough to run a marathon at around 3.15/3.20hr at the moment. So, I remind myself that I am fit and ready to do this. I probably just need to get used to the weather and the elevation and after a few hours I will be fine keeping up.
FALLING BEHIND
The guys noticed me falling behind and decide to slow down a bit. They do not seem to mind the slower pace and the new pace feels a lot better to me. I guess it is good not to push myself too hard on the first day, as we still have plenty of ground to cover over the next days. Although we are not running yet, we are passing all hikers on our way up. It is hot and sunny outside and I already start to sweat only a few minutes in. Starting with a few drops that soon turn into streams running down my face. I realise I need to drink plenty of water not to get dehydrated.
Unfortunately my hydration bladder started to leak before departure and I decided to start the trip with two half liter bottles that I would refill wherever I can on the way. On this first day, as we started low and passed through towns, there were plenty of options to refill. It did make it harder to keep drinking while moving as the bottles were in the side pockets of my pack which I could not reach while moving forward. Every time I wanted a sip, I needed to ask one of the team to hand me a bottle or stop and get my pack off to grap the bottle myself. As I didn’t want to be too much of a pain in the butt I did not drink enough that day.
After an 1,100m ascent we were on the first summit of the day at 2,700m. After one easy downhill we were back at 1,800m in a small village where we could refill our water bottles and buy lunch. We immediately noticed the perks of being in Italy. Our lunch consisted of a nice big freshly baked panini with some good prosciutto crudo and cheese for a small price. Unlike the prices we were paying later on during our trip when moving through Switzerland. What a difference a few kilometres can make.
THE SECOND SUMMIT
After this refuelling break we were ready for the second ascent of the day, going up to almost 3,000m this time. It was a long and not that interesting road that took us up to that height. Again I was struggling going up and started to doubt whether I had trained enough. I couldn’t really understand what was going on. I expected the other guys to be faster, but I did not expect the difference to be this big. I knew I was fit coming here, but I wasn’t feeling fit at the time.
Nils and Karen took off, preferring to keep their pace, and Christof stayed with me, moving at a slower pace. The higher we got the more cloudy it got. It was harder to see and unfortunately we missed the amazing views we would have had if the weather would have been different, but there were more mountains to summit and more views to come over the next days so I wasn’t too worried.
When arriving at this second summit of the day at about 2,900m we could not see Nils and Karen anywhere so we assumed they had started heading down to protect themselves from the harsh winds that were up there. While we were getting lower and lower there was still no sign of them and unfortunately cell reception isn’t always reliable in the mountains. We continued our way down and as soon as we got reception back we tried calling them. It turned out Nils and Karen continued higher, as Christof and I kept following the road staying just below the actual summit.
After a quick call we found out that they were hundred meters above us and waited for them to catch up to continue again as a team for our final descent of the day.
THE FINAL DESCENT
What followed was a technical, rocky and foggy downhill of about 1,300 meters. Normally I love technical downhills but this time I could not find my rhythm. Maybe it was the fatigue of the long day setting in, the lack of sleep or the five kilogram rucksack I was carrying that made me run less controlled and slower downhill. Nils, as a novice to trail running, was also struggling on this technical and somewhat steep path going down that we decided to stick together and let Karen and Christof have their moment running run down faster together.
It was the right decision as Karen and Christof were enjoying their downhill and Nils and I felt more comfortable and not pushed to go over our limits on day one. We arrived safe and sound about twenty minutes after Karen and Christof arrived at our mountain hut, and just in time before it started to rain.
After a quick hot shower and some warmer clean clothes we sat down for dinner together celebrating our first successful day with great Italian food and some beers and wine. I am hoping I will get some better sleep and be ready for stage two.
