Refuge Des Envers day 1

The approach up to the Refuge des Envers is between 2-3 hours depending on how fast you’re walking. Even though I am pretty used to walk long approaches, through ski touring among other things, I find the walk up to the Envers hut very long. Maybe it is because it involves so many different stages. It’s not that you walk on the same path and in the same environment for 3 hours as it normally is. It’s a constant change of landscape under your feet.

We start off taking the Mont Envers train that in a speed not much slower than a snail, drag us up along a very beautiful and steep track to the foot of the massive Mer de Glace.

We continue walking down a wide gravelled path, zigzagging between tourists until the path is exchanged for an exposed traverse on steep rails and ladders.

Eventually we get down to the level of the Glacier.

With the enormous red and yellow arrow in aim, we start walking up the glacier which in the beginning is easy but gradually gets way wilder. We have to walk around big water filled holes and jump over crevasses which if we would fall into would put us in a very serious situation.

The glaciers are amazing natural features and make really cool shapes and formations that you never get bored of looking at. The Glacier is surrounded by big mountain sides that are very brittle. A lot of rock has fallen on to the glacier which at some parts has covered it completely, making it hard to understand if your walking on a glacier or just a big pile of gravel. Another cool thing is the individual stones, some times fist size some times car size, that are getting heated by the sun and eventually melts their way through the ice, creating the big holes. The constant melting is also creating rivers that are undermining the glacier and in an extent are filling up the holes (made by the stones) with water.

After about 20-30 minutes of walking we start traversing off the glacier and climb the endless ladders and rails that will take us past the big arrow painted on the rock, unmistakably showing which direction we are heading. The ladders are at some points very steep and even overhanging actually!

On the top we have one more stage of endless walking to conquer. It’s the least dramatic part of the approach but the longest and goes quite steep uphill more or less for ever.

Then all of a sudden, when we have almost given up and we’re all very convinced that the Envers hut is just a bluff, we can see a house in the distance.

Tiredness and a slight dizziness could easily make you wonder if your eyes are telling you a lie when you see a house built on a very exposed and steep ridge, which from a distance doesn’t seem to have any access to it. But make no mistake, it’s there! :)

Up at the hut, we hade a quick lunch and then went to do the route Guy-Anne 12 pitches, 6a+. A warmly recommended route with two crack pitches in the beginning of absolute world class!
             

Me getting in to the first world class crack of the route.

Eva on the second world class crack pitch

Eva on the tiny and exposed summit of the first pillar of the Nantillons.

Evening at Refuge des Envers. People bragging about their adventures of the day and the aguille verte range in the background looking down at us. (Le Dru and Aguille verte in the clouds)