Snow at last

Harry Emerson Fosdick said, “The world is moving so fast these days that the man who says it can't be done is generally interrupted by someone doing it.” This quote resonates with me this year, as I have been so hectically frantic that I have finally after 11 months of being on the road, stopped rushing around, planning, organising and expeditioning. I am now tucked away in a remote Swiss village, on a hill side in a quiet chalet on my own, a lot like solitary confinement but the views are better. I have no phone, Internet connection (to hand) or television. Just lots of books and great views down the Pays D'Enhaut.

Yesterday it was 15 degrees centigrade, warm and sunny and the whole valley below 1500m was spring green (above that height there was a little snow.) Today I awoke to 20cm of fresh snow filling the whole valley – your perfect winter wonderland, the boughs of the trees bent double from the weight of fresh snow, a still silence that comes with the frozen insulation, the noise of the passing train in the valley below muffled from the fresh veil cotton wool that had descended in the night. I woke in the early hours of this morning from another 'Greenland nightmare', my tent had yet again been swallowed into a crevasse and through the dawn light hear the rain, then at some point in those early hours, the temperature must have dropped and the snow settled.

I am using this time in the mountains to recover from my journey South, as the weeks rolled on at home. I was traveling too much, visiting friends and catching up with family, I hadn't really stopped and rested from getting off the plane and I was worse for it. Not only has my body needed to recover, but mentally I have had to take stock of what has happened this year – 3 major expeditions with hardly a break in between, I have put my body through 7 months of endurance and covered 3000 miles under my own body power on ski and bike. I have not considered really effect if any this has had on my head. The journey to the Pole seems to have left me, I can't quite recall the details or the feelings and to be honest I am a bit scared that the experience might have left me, so this time now is therapeutic in recovering and allowing me to take stock of all that has happened.

Have you ever spent a day watching snow melt? This is what I have done today, when I sat down at my desk this morning there was 20cm of freshies on the slope outside the chalet, there is a picture window infront of me and as I look up from my laptop I can see the snow melting, the sun not quite exposed from the clouds is doing its best to rid the ground of its new white blanket.
On my slope now there are only 5 spots of golf ball sized snow left. The rocks, dead grass and mud are ugly compared to the supreme whiteness of the snow, I miss it. The snow and the ice that is, I want to be back on the plateau hauling my sledge and all my possessions towards a pointless goal on an unending horizon.

Being back has felt like being on a holiday and it is now over and at any moment Clare or Shaun will call to pick me up and we'll get back to work on the ice, like it is where I belong. You know when you have been on a 2 week holiday and over the last few days you are ready to get home and back to work, well I feel like this about the ice.

So I suppose being in the mountains as spring draws near and seeing the snow melt around me is good place to be to soften the reality jolt, a sort of staging post from the extreme to the comfort of friends and family, because I feel I had plunged far too quickly into the comfort of the sofa.

No more snow outside my window now – just green grass.

p.s - if you are wondering how I uploaded this with no Internet connection, it is a 45 minute walk down to the village, where I have piggybacked off an old ladies unsecured wireless network...not so remote afterall!
p.p.s – the picture is my view this morning to the 'hidden valley' so don't feel too sorry for me all alone up here!
p.p.p.s - who is Harry Emerson Fosdick

Audi A6 and snowchains don't mix

On my way back from Geneva last night, up to the village of Chateau d'oex, my beloved SatNav took me over the Le Mosses pass and the torrential rain that was falling at lake Geneva (actually not called that its real name is Lac Leman!) was blizzard like conditions on the pass. I was just starting to head down from the pass, about 11km from the hotel and there was 2 to 3 inches of slush/snow on the road and I tested the brakes and I skidded for about 20m, I dabbed the brakes, switched to a lower gear (not easy in an automatic), for a split second I thought I would have to bail as the car wouldn't stop, fortunately the engine did eventually brake the car and I stopped. I put the snow chains on and they were useless, managed to turn the car around and headed back up to the pass and then plotted a new route via a lower pass, after being only 11km from home I took another 2 hours to get to the hotel.

This car is useless in the snow!

Cool runnings

Don't read this unless you are a fitness freak - its boring!

As skiing is not that cardiovascular 'fittening' (is that a word?), a days moderate skiing burns less calories than a good hike/walk for 5 hours. Nathan and I calculated that over the 2 weeks we have skied or boarded over 700kms (about the same distance as here to Calais) and that doesn't include sitting on the lift, which is why you don't burn too many calories skiing as you spend more than half your day on sat down.

These snowsports do however make your legs very strong but don't make you fitter, so in order to ensure that we don't loose fitness over the 2 weeks (Nathan has lots of cycle races to do this year and I have to start cycling to Iceland in less than a month) we have decided to fit in as many runs as we can. We had 3 in Montgenevre and have completed 3 more in Cervinia, the key difference being that these last runs started at 2050m and went upto 2600m – this is very different to the ones we did last week. My heart rate was way higher than when running at home, over 170 bpm which is nearing my maximum (185bpm) – my average on the 35 minute circuit was 172bpm, this is ridiculous and puts me in an anaerobic state and not at a fat burning endurance building pace that I need (so instead of burning fat to fuel my muscles, I am using the energy stored in my muscles, once used it is replaced with lactic acid (which you can feel as sore muscles) and not very good for skiing the next day when you need strong legs.)

Now back in Switzerland and staying at 1000m I have just been out for a 2hr run (approx 14 miles) and have felt fine and strong the whole distance (can't help but think the runs at higher altitudes have helped but without proper laboratory conditions we wont know!) the valley I ran up wasn't steep but was uphill for the first 7 miles and then downhill on the way back. The way back was run in a complete blizzard and I looked like a snowman on my return.

Anyway enough running now until I am down in the south of Italy. 4 weeks of skiing and boarding and running, I think my legs need a week or so off to recover.