See what I did there? Karin smiles or Karin's miles. I like to think I do a lot of the first one a while clocking up the second, my running partners may think differently... Filed under: running
Saturday 12th Setember 2009
I still felt lousy when I woke up. I had a headache and felt I couldn’t catch my breath. I felt a bit better after I went outside but I didn’t manage to eat anything until I had drunk 3 cups of coffee and even then it was only an apple and a bit of orange. We were almost last out of the refuge and we asked the guardien to phone ahead to La Flegere but when there was no answer he suggested that La Flegere may have already shut for the season, so we opted for Lac Blanc instead.
Today was the day of the ladders which I wasn’t much looking forward to; as I have said before, I don’t have much of a head for heights, but I wanted to go this path rather than the route by the valley. Bill had to keep waiting for me on the path. I don’t think I was especially slow but we normally walk at a fair rate (with frequent stops for photographs, less frequent now since we were down to one camera with a charged battery) and I was finding it difficult to get enough air in my lungs.
Steps
Ladders!
log steps
Mer de Glace
After the ladders the path was quite easy and I felt considerably better, so I wondered how much of my malaise had been down to anticipating the challenge. We met the honeymoon couple we had last seen in the Val Veny and they said they had seen ibex on the path above. And indeed there was a group of 8 ibex, including 2 young, sitting around without a glance at the walkers watching and photographing them.
There was some more ironwork and planks on the way up to Lac Blanc (my boots were designed for via ferrata, it should be easy!), but it was by now just a question of remembering to keep breathing and putting one foot in front of the other. The cloud was down when we reached Lac Blanc and it was really cold, so we found a sheltered spot to eat lunch and then went inside for hot chocolate.
Refuge du Lac Blanc
The refuge started to get really busy so we sat tight in a cosy corner and waited until the crowd had moved on before we checked into the dortoir. I really didn’t feel well again and the dortoir was pretty chilly, so I got under the blankets with two thermal tops on intending to snooze for a little while. I was really shivery though and only slept intermittently. I got up when more people arrived but by then the rain had started and then there was a thunderstorm, so we never did get a walk round the lake.
I took some paracetamol to try and drop my temperature and by dinner time I felt well enough to eat and talk to the others at the table. The thunderstorm was quite exciting and the weather forecast for the next day was better but for now it was cold. The dortoir was full though and soon warmed up when everybody went to bed. The whole day was a bit of a struggle but it was almost the end of the trip. I felt I could cope if I still felt ill tomorrow and it had still been a good day – in fact we hadn’t had a bad one in the whole trip.
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