Thank you for the comments and responses to my last post about locating the place where my father died in June 2021. Visiting Mount Raymond felt like a natural thing to do — roadside memorials and ghost bikes prove that others feel similarly. Still, it proved surprisingly tough to write about because of the intimacy of the experience, the complicated emotions it might spur in family members, and judgments from those who don’t understand. I’m grateful that I received no mean comments or even worse, silence. My Substack has logged 107 new subscribers since I posted the essay on Mount Raymond, so thank you to those who read and shared it. Human connections are difficult for me, and my main motivation for writing is to connect with people. It means a lot that the piece resonated with others.
It’s been difficult to decide what to write next since I don’t want this to become Jill’s Latest Outdoor Exercise Blog 2.0. But I spent the first half of September exploring gorgeous mountains in Switzerland and Italy and thought I’d share a few of my favorite hikes over the next few posts.
The Tor des Geants is a well-worn chapter in my and Beat’s history. I’ve written about our first date at the 2010 Bear 100, but in many ways, that year’s Tor des Geants was even more meaningful. It was the first year for that 200-mile, 80,000-feet-of-climbing monster around Italy’s Aosta Valley. TDG was Beat’s first “Ultra” ultramarathon. I followed his progress over the course of the week with awe. It was his impossible-seeming finish that inspired me to chase him down the Bear 100 course the following week. And it was the gift of an Italian rock that solidified our relationship. I have joined Beat in Courmayeur for all of his subsequent Tors, from my first trip to Europe in 2011 to his early DNF with a prior injury in 2017.
I attempted the Tor des Geants myself, once, in 2014. I look back on 2012-2014 with nostalgia as Salad Days, when my health, endurance, and youthful idealism were all at their peak and I could do anything I set my mind to. It was the Alps — these beautiful, fearsome mountains — that did the most to knock me down to the mire of reality. It started with a race that was even more difficult than the Tor des Geants — La Petite Trotte à Léon — in 2013. I still haven’t forgiven Beat for not talking me out of this folly. There’s a very long story about it up on my old blog (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4.) The truncated version of the story is that I was a mountaineering novice who had no idea what I was getting into, joined an international team with a severe language barrier, was made defacto leader and navigator despite my inexperience, didn’t sleep for four days, became so stressed and strained my eyes so much that I tore the extraocular muscles and had to wear glasses for the next six months. After 120 miles of relentless trauma (over four entire days!) I had a total nervous breakdown/panic attack. The dissociation was so complete that I was pleading with myself — out loud — to stop running as my body violently tore through thick brush in the woods and then sprinted down dark road tunnels. That was one intense DNF. PTL is the hardest thing I’ve done, by far, even if it was a miserable failure.
You think I would have learned, but no, I went back the following year for the “nice” race, the Tor des Geants. For the first three days, Tor was going well for me and I was actually having a great time. But I encountered a bad storm on the most technical part of the course — also near mile 120 — and fell ten feet down a wet boulder, wrenching my left knee and tearing my LCL. That was a deeply disappointing DNF and a long recovery.
I still say that finishing TDG would be the pinnacle of my ultrarunning career. With just one finish, I could retire happily knowing I accomplished everything I wanted to do (even though that isn’t true, it’s a nice thought to talk myself into.) But with each passing year, my confidence only slips farther into an insurmountable hole. It continued in 2015 with a failed attempt at Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc just as my health was swiftly deteriorating. Unknowingly, I was battling an autoimmune disease triggered by a virus I caught three months earlier during the Tour Divide. At the time I was dealing with both moderate asthma and likely severe thyroiditis. Being so sick on those mountains was an experience unlike any other — even PTL, which still gives me nightmares 10 years later. Somehow, UTMB was even worse, enough so that I’ve banished many of the memories. But I still shudder when I remember gasping for breath on top of Grand Col Ferret and being grateful I was near the back of the field, so a sweep would find me if I lost consciousness. I also, at age 36, was finally thinking, “This is really dumb. This is just a really dumb thing to be doing.”
Finally, I was ready to turn away from mountain racing. And I did. I haven’t done anything significant in the mountains since 2015 — despite my proximity to many events in Colorado and joining Beat for his European escapades nearly every year.
Fast forward all of these years, all of these mistakes, all of these stumbles and falls, and — to be frank — the loss of my father in a mountain accident … I don’t trust myself in the mountains any more than I’d trust myself after a few too many. I continue to visit mountains because I love them. I love them passionately. I love their beauty, their soaring complexity, their perch high above the confines of everyday life. But it’s a complicated love. There’s a dash of loathing and not a small amount of fear. So I try to strike a balance. I try not to let my ego get in the way. I try not to venture past my comfort zone, even when tempted by Beat and his grand visions. I already don’t feel safe, even when the terrain is objectively easy and safe.
So it was strange, really, that as soon as Beat left the starting line for the 10 a.m. Sept. 10 start of the Tor des Geants, I glanced up at the soaring skyline of the Monte Bianco (Mont Blanc) Massif and thought, “I wonder if there are any hiking routes to the ridge?” I know there are plenty of mountaineering routes and via ferratas up the steep and rocky face. I’ve seen them on maps. The maps were enough to convince me there were no “trails” to the top. From its vantage point in Courmayeur, the upper flanks of the massif look vertical. And yet …
Beat and I have become hooked on the routes mapped by Alps Insight. We’ve explored at least a dozen of them in Switzerland. As far as I can tell, Alps Insight is comprised of two to four runners who are incredible athletes and even better photographers. Their routes are gorgeous but they vastly undersell the difficulty. A route that would be classified as Class 4 scrambling in Colorado gets a “Moderate” rating from them. A route that gains 1,200 feet per mile on a gravelly trail qualifies as “Easy” in their book. So when I found a route listed in their guide, I was intrigued but skeptical. Here’s what they have to say about the “Torino Hut Double VK:”
If you like hiking uphill directly under a perfectly useful lift, then this is the run for you. The appeal: it's somewhat rare to find a trail that goes up 2,000 uninterrupted meters. This one's all about the vert, put your head down and trudge, crawl, and scramble your way up. If you can ignore the infrastructure and the shitty trail quality, and hold your breath while passing through the decrepit hallways of Rifugio Torino Vecchio, then it makes for a unique experience.
I liked the idea that I could potentially ride a gondola down if I didn’t feel like descending. And it was an out and back, so I could always turn around if I lost my nerve. Unfortunately, I dawdled so long that I didn’t set out until 12:30 p.m., which meant I likely only had 4.5 hours to hike seven miles with more than 7,000 feet of climbing (I didn’t even check the time for the last gondola, but they are almost always at 5 p.m.) It was a pretty big ask after the strenuous week I’d had in Switzerland. But doable … maybe?
One crucial decision I made before leaving the hotel was donning my hiking boots. Last summer in Switzerland, Beat bought me a pair of Meindl Tonale gore-tex boots after I expressed envy about the sturdy footwear all of the Europeans seem to wear in the mountains. I don’t wear my boots often and feel bad about it, but Beat was right about the stiff, sweaty boots murdering my feet. I hadn’t had a blister in years, and suddenly the soles of my feet were peeling off after one particularly long day on the Mettelhorn. However, the boots do lift me just slightly out of my insurmountable confidence hole. They take my soft human feet with ankles held together by the equivalent of brittle rubber bands and make them feel like something closer to mountain goat hooves.
I sauntered through town for three miles and climbed onto the overgrown singletrack beneath Skyway Monte Bianco after one hour. Almost halfway done! Ha ha. The singletrack was steep and the afternoon was stiflingly hot, but at least traction was good. I breezily knocked out the first 3,000 feet of climbing and arrived at Pavillion, mile five, with just under two hours on my watch. Were there really just two miles to go? And almost three hours to do it? But wait … was the upper station really 4,000 feet higher? From my perch on a small ledge, it looked like it was right there. Of course, the mountain face between me at the Skyway looked like a vertical cliff. 4,000 feet on a route with only two horizontal miles will look like that.
After a dozen steep switchbacks and a hands-on crawl through avalanche barriers, I wasn’t surprised to arrive at a series of blocky scrambles “secured” by weathered ropes. The scrambles were easy enough and not too exposed, so I ignored the questionable rope. Anyway, I needed to maintain confidence in my ability to backtrack in case I reached the upper limit of my comfort zone.
But the scrambles just continued. Sometimes they were reasonably exposed. My calf muscles started to cramp and my right arm — still weak from multiple injuries throughout the summer — shook when I held too much weight on it. That still, small voice that coaxed me away from mountain racing eight years ago again whispered: “This is just a really dumb thing to be doing. No one knows you’re here. There aren’t any race sweeps coming to save you if you fall from this ledge.”
And it’s so strange. For eight years, for the most part, I have listened to this voice. And yet, on this day, I was defiant.
“It’s you. You’re the reason I’m an anxiety-ridden mess. This is not that hard. I can do this.”
The thought was empowering and exhilerating. I can do this. This is some pretty intense Class 3 terrain that just keeps going and going, and I can do this! As I picked my way up the ridge, the Skyway Monte Bianco gondola swept overhead, back and forth, breezily carrying dozens of people past my precarious perch. I continued to assure myself I could reverse anything I was climbing, but I also became more fixated on catching that gondola down.
“Faster, faster,” I willed my weak limbs.
As I climbed above 9,000 feet, I encountered the shitty trail that the Alps Insight folks had warned about. The route is well-marked with ropes and yellow dots painted on rocks. But veering off the route even a few feet quickly put me on treacherous 50-degree scree slopes. Truly, only my sturdy boots were holding me in place. My heart raced as I glanced around for anything I could grasp. As I pivoted my body, my feet started to slide.
“Gotta stick to the rock. Gotta stick to the rock.”
But soon enough, scree slopes were the only choice. I sweated and gasped and clambered my way up to 10,000 feet. The gondola continued to swoop overhead, but I noticed the inbound car no longer carried many people. I didn’t dare look at my watch. I had already scrambled up several moves that I didn’t want to reverse. My heart fell to my stomach when I thought about having to do so.
“Faster, faster,” I willed my weak limbs.
Decades seemed to pass before I clawed through the scree and rock to 11,000 feet. Now only a narrow traverse, a ladder, and a sneak through the decrepit old cable car station — which does indeed smell like a sewer — lay between me and the Refugio. A gondola swept overhead carrying a full load of people. As I looked up at them, just a dozen or so feet over my own head, I swore I could see pity on their faces. I knew without even confirming the time that this was the last gondola for the day. I could feel it in my tired bones.
I still climbed the final steps to the Refugio, just in case. The entire day had been swelteringly hot — 86 degrees when I left Courmayeur. But up here, with a cold wind blowing off the glacier, a crushing chill slammed against my sweat-soaked body. I knew that if I did indeed miss the last cable car, I was going to have to pick my way down as quickly as possible. I had three hours of daylight to work with before sunset. Retracing the correct route after dark would be impossible. And spending the night on this cold, treacherous slope was not an option.
When I walked into the Refugio, it was 5:08 p.m. There was a bartender who did not speak much English, but she indicated that the cable car station was indeed closed. I thought about which words I could use to inquire about a bed for the night. I could pay to sleep at the warm Refugio and catch the gondola in the morning. That would have been the reasonable and correct thing to do. Still, the empowering feeling I’d bolstered during the climb still coursed through my veins.
“You can do this,” I thought. “You really can.”
I was able to purchase two large bottles of sparkling water and a lemon soda at the bar, which was a godsend since I drank the last of my water nearly an hour earlier. And there was no water on the mountainside unless I walked out onto the glacier and ate snow. With that, I walked back out into the cold wind, down the closed-off and alarmingly rickety metal stairs, through the stinky ruin, and back onto the ridge that just 20 minutes ago I would have given anything to never see again.
Reversing everything I’d climbed was difficult, exhausting, objectively risky … and yet so exhilerating. Evening descended swiftly and an eerie silence settled over the mountain. The only thing I could hear was the clatter of distant rockfall — not exactly a soothing sound. And yet I knew I would be okay. When I arrived at the tricky moves that I had been reluctant to downclimb, I gave myself little pep talks. “Take your time. Deliberate steps. You can speed up later.”
When I came to the 50-degree scree slopes where I had felt like I was falling even while standing still, I dug in my boots and pretended they were infallible anchors, then took relative leaps of faith. “You’re a mountain goat,” I cheerlead. “You have hooves and you can do this.”
The evening light grew soft by the time I arrived at the avalanche barriers. Still, it was light. I had done it. I’d crawled off the worst of the mountain before dark! My legs felt like jello and I hadn’t consumed any calories besides 250 ml of lemon soda in the six hours it took me to cover four miles. At Pavillion I finally allowed myself to stop and eat a granola bar.
Surging with 150 calories of carbs and empowering fulfillment, I launched down the practically flat (losing a mere 1,500 feet per mile) cat track, digging my infallible boots into the loose gravel at a reasonable jogging pace. I had about 40 minutes to make it all the way down to town before dark, and damn it, I was going to do it. Dropping 3,000 feet in two 15-minute miles, I managed to lope onto the pavement and halfway back to my hotel before I even pulled out my headlamp.
I felt as though I’d finished the Tor des Geants, finished UTMB, and banished all of my long-festering mountain demons in one magical afternoon. And I knew this was a dangerous feeling — overconfidence and hubris are exactly what birthed those mountain demons all of those years ago.
Damn! I read on the edge of my seat, hoping for that exhilarating feeling of you taking the gondola down and feeling the rush of adrenaline of you having to scramble back down. Oof.
Also “Jill’s Latest Outdoor Exercise Blog 2.0”--I think we would all read that no matter how you wrote it!
I admired your previous posts enormously. No one writes as graphically as you do, courageously NOT hiding your emotional half of who you and all of us are. Todays writing merely emphasized you as a peak athlete and writer. Thanks Jill