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Up at the crack of dawn and armed with his whistle but no drinks cabinet (Capt Blackadder) Nic prepared Sedef for the big push! This is it girl, no turning back now! With a sharp blow we set off… well after a hot cup of coffee and some pastries anyway. It was tough as we had feared, but someone had to do it!!!
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The first part of our ascent took us through a long section of covered roadways filled with speeding cars and coaches. Fortunately for us the majority (sensibly! unlike some) took the tunnel through the mountain, leaving the road up to the col to motorcyclists, tourists… and two lunatics on bikes!
For those more fool hardy the real challenge was about to start! So we stopped for lunch! Hmmm hot pasta and more coffee.. (well you can never have too much coffee or pasta can you!!). After chatting with some Dutch motorcyclists (Rob and party) who had just descended we set out for part II and the summit.
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This was the gruelling part complete with freezing fog, low cloud cover, wind and rain and 15 degree gradients around hairpin curves. Almost all of the mountain above us meant that the big push was hidden from view – probably a good thing too! At times it seemed as if the road ceased to exist in both directions above and below us, this easily played on our minds as we had no clear indication of how much further we had to go… well apart from the GPS, the altitude meters on our watches, the advice from Anne Mustoe and Rob we had nothing to go on and were practically helpless! :p We knew what Anne Mustoe must have felt like (as she mentions in her book) when having got to the point which looks like the summit, the road gently curves around, and reveals the road crawling up another 500m over our heads around 10 more bends! However being somewhat prepared for this we struggled on and made it to the summit, which in true western style has a gift shop with plastic imitations of the mountain and “my son went up the Gt St Bernards Pass and bought me this” T-Shirts! Sorry nan you are not getting one!
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Joking aside, it was a real struggle to get us and the bikes up to the top, though the sense of achievement was immense – alas short lived as we were freezing and soaked to the skin, so much so that our hands and feet were going numb, and the night was setting in with predictions of snow. So once we had warmed up a little with hot chocolate and waffles we started the first part of the descent to get to warmer altitudes before the night! The previous night had seen snow on the peaks and had us worried as people were saying that the pass could be closed due to bad weather.
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The descent was almost as arduous as the ascent, freezing rain in our faces, the numb sensation in our hands and feet, icy roads with their hair-pin bends and very poor visibility. The descent was so steep that within an hour we had lost half the altitude we gained, and arrived at the campsite at Etroubles (rather unfortunate name), Italia.
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To give you an idea how high we got to, we had altogether 65 miles of descent over the next few days from the summit into the heart of Italy! A good hearty meal and good night’s sleep that night helped us regain normality (well it worked for Sedef – Nic’s still a bit strange – nothing new there!).
