CHAMONIX IN JULY: THE ARGENTIÈRE GLACIER

CHAMONIX IN JULY: THE ARGENTIÈRE GLACIER                          NICOLE FANDEL

We had left the steep curving mountain path and the trees behind us. Our hiking shoes crunched on gravel at every step, gently. You’d think that trekking on a glacier would be slippery, but no, the July sun had melted the snow at this level and walking was easy. Around us Mont Blanc, Mont Maudit and a string of white summits scrolled against the blue sky: the usual stunning Chamonix background setting.

            Nicole, my friend, and her father Robi, a veteran of the Compagnie des Guides de Chamonix, were taking me on a seven hour trip on the Argentière Glacier: a treat  but also a true challenge: me being a bit on the wimpy side. No way could I have done this alone, and no way would I have gone with my son who lives there whose mantra is Peak experience! I was in good hands and tried to limit my ohs and ahs! To say the truth I was on my best behavior having a bit of a crush on Robi who had climbed the tallest peaks, guided many pros, and still won international acclaim although well in his sixties. 

He went first, Nicole last. I followed his instructions to the letter:

“ Regular even pace, save your energy and your breath. No talk. On the glacier, you put

your foot in my track as I go. My step, your step. Just put your foot where my foot was.

Steady. No stopping. No thinking. C’est tout!”

Nicole added: ”We’ll make a mountaineer out of you!”

Robi set the pace.  My eyes straight ahead, I followed.  Unromantically, the ground was a mixture of crushed stones mixed with coarse grains of grey ice: it is the summer melt called ‘névé’ about 5 meters deep.  It reminded me of the dirty snow lining  New England’s roads at the end of  a rough winter. We are far down from the glacier top where ice prisms colored by the sun shimmer like an enchanted city against the sky.

I know we are on a moving mountain, a frozen river gliding down, apparently motionless but relentless. This always blows my mind. Ever since I was a child I was fascinated by books on alpinism. The fact that I lived in Belgium, the flattest country after the well named Netherland, might account for that passion for mountains!  Realizing that my mind was wandering, I concentrated on Robi’s feet and mine.

Then time stopped! Deep down between my feet, within the space of a footstep,

 I saw two vertical slabs: two walls of the whitest white lined by a few black shadows and way, way down a large patch of dazzling, illuminating, rich, deep ultramarine blue bursting in my eyes.  It moved me into another realm.  There I stood: hypnotized, mesmerized by that mix of danger, extreme beauty and otherworldliness.  I was touching the soul of the earth. Words like infinite, eternal, supernatural and spiritual were dancing in my head.

“ Hé, ho!  You missed two steps!”

            “ Robi, I saw my first crevasse! It is positively a religious experience! I felt one with the world. It is magic!”

            “ Mon Dieu! Glad you like it. Many people don’t even notice them, or if they do,  they shrieck, jump, and act crazy! Allez! En avant!”

We resumed the steady pace with that blue still swimming in my eyes. It will stay with me till I die: the day time stopped as I straddled the soul of the earth.