Can you imagine to do 51 km in the alps with a altitude difference of 4000m in temperatures ranging from 5 to – 20 degrees?
Maybe yes if you are well trained but the guys I could follow with my camera they do it in less than 6 ½ hours! No I’m not joking this is serious.

We tock the helicopter from Arolla up to the Col de Bertole at 3000metres. The walk up to the 3700meter  summit of the Tete Blanche was everything else as a walk in the park, at least for me with my almost 15 kg backpack containing cameras, lenses etc.

With the limited view due to the storm, it was hard to estimate the distance to the summit as we could not see it, and the last few hundred meters where never ending, the air got thinner, my legs weaker and the my backpack with the cameras heavier.

After a while I started to count the steps, every 60 steps a I started again and again just to motivate myself to get up there.

It was a wonderful moment when my guide Norbert Zurwerra shouted: “There is the summit”.

Up on the summit we found a big military tent and you can’t imagine the surprised faces of this mountaineers when a stranger drops in with the excuse we are here to do a few pictures.

After a coffee we could relax for a few hours but at 1.30 in the morning with the wind blowing at 80 km/m at minus – 20 degrees we got out of the tent.

Until this moment I had no idea what I’m going to see in a few minutes, all happened very fast, get the camera of the bag, set up the flash do a few shots to verify the settings and here they are, running as we can down in the valley but here we are at 3700 meters.

What was even more amazing considering that Tete Blanche is not the end of the trail but they still had two more summits before it goes down to Verbier.

The definition of being fit became a complete new dimension. Until this moment I was sure to be fit and comfortable with my health.

How much do they train to get this level of fitness? At least 40’000 meters in altitude difference. With 50 weekends /year you know what they are doing in their freetime.

Now I’m back home sitting in front of my notebook writing this post with some small frost damages on the right cheek and ear. This is the end of the post as I want to go jogging a bit.I’m not planning to do the Patrouille des Glaciers in 2 years as participant. As photographer would be great and hopefully again with Norbert Zurwerra as guide, and next time I want to carry the heavy photo equipment up to the Tete Blanche without counting.

Enjoy the images

Jürg

PS: I almost forgot to say, It’s important to reach the summit but It’s even more important to come down safe. As the weather was still too bad for the helicopter, we did the way back to Arolla on our ski. Going up is hard but skiing down isn’t easy too with a heavy backpack.