Zermatt is currently filling up with ski rando racers today, all arriving for tonights Patrouille des Glaciers (Glacier Patrol Race – Zermatt to Verbier 65k, 4000m ascent – ie the longest ski mountaineering race in the world).  We’ve 3 British Teams in tonights race, so we’ll let you know how everyone gets on soon…

GB RESULTS

Well it was an interesting nights racing – starting at 2am with an hours running, before skinning up the Tete Blanche at 3700m in a snowstorm, followed by plenty of mayhem down to Arolla. 

Out into the daylight, the poor weather continued as far as the Rosablanche where the sun finally came out down to Verbier.  We arrived in 8hr 43mins – not bad for a normal 4 days of skiing on the Haute Route.  In the other GB teams, Jon Morgan snapped a ski coming down to Arolla – so he, Carron and Rick Marchant sadly had to drop out - whereas Nick, Ben and Dougal finished in 12hrs 11mins.  In the half race from Arolla, Ivor Ligertwood also raced with two of our juniors Nick and Rupert who finished in 5hr 08mins.

It’s quite difficult to comprehend the sheer length and terrain covered on this race, as you plunge off into the darkness and snow in Zermatt in the middle of the night – then after a whole lot of running, skinning, skiing, climbing and effort - finally end up miles away in Verbier just a few hours later.  Skiing the Haute Route just won’t feel quite the same again!

2am start, running out of Zermatt.

Climbing the Rosablanche, the last big climb on the course.

8hrs 43mins later – Olly, Jon and Al at the finish in Verbier.

This was a race I’d been wanting to do for a while and it certainly lived up to expectations – with a great course and lovely weather.  The Super Trophee (ie long course) involves nearly 2800m of climb split into 2 big climbs, with some long sections on foot including the famous 500m high Pacheux Couloir.  Racing with Jon Bracey, things were never going to be anything but quick – but we were both quite surprised to find ourselves in the lead of the 6.30am start group after just a couple of minutes.

Jon was going strongly as ever, despite having worked on the hill every day since the Pierra Menta – whilst I on the other hand had picked up a stomach bug which came to a head on the second climb, with a desperate two minutes pulling a lycra catsuit off in the woods!  Nevertheless, we managed to hang in there and finished in just under 4 1/2 hours.  With other teams starting at different times, we couldn’t wait around for the prizegiving to see all the results – but looking at the online results it turned out we’d finished third, so a damn good result.

Climbing the 500m high Couloir du Pacheux on the Grand Muveran

Ever friendly Matheo Edalyne of Italy, winner of this years TSF Millet

OK – so the final two races (Vertical Race and Long Distance) went off well on Thur/Fri with some good results, meaning we stayed ahead of the USA and finished 13th overall in the National Rankings – ie not bad at all. 

In the vertical race, Ben came 36th and Jon Bracey finished 32nd in the Long Distance – this last race in particular turned out to be a gruelling affair, held in full ‘scottish’ conditions ie rain at the bottom, blizzard at the top, skiing 7 times up and down between the two – luckily I was ill in bed, so missed it!  Florent Perrier lost his skins 3 times on the final ascent, so missed out on a clean sweep in by finishing 2nd to Guido Giacomelli of Italy in this last race.

Team race on Tuesday – Dents du Midi behind

Scary Sight – Florent Perrier (FRA) winning the Vertical Race

For the Ski Mountaineering World Chamionships vertical race: ‘boots must have 2 buckles, come above the ankles and weigh no less than 650g each’ – every piece of excess metalwork, straps and tongues have now been ripped off everyones boots ready for tommorrows vertical race (this consists of skinning up a hill as fast as you can for nearly 1000 vertical metres before collapsing on the finish line – thankfully I’m doing the new long distance race on Friday instead!) 

Jonny Morgan has the best track record in this event and made a special visit to Paul and Tracey Wright’s house down the road this morning in order to ‘borrow some power tools’… this resulted in a pair of boots right on the weight, limit that still passed the kit inspection.

We’ve got all of the juniors out tommorrow, plus our fastest 3 ascenders for the men and Tracey in the womens – this is the final race which counts toward the National Rankings - so if you’ve read the previous post, you’ve got one guess as to which team we’re aiming to stay ahead of!

Jonny Morgan aka ‘The Morganator’ getting stuck into what were once a good pair of ski boots..

The signed red label indicates they passed the kit inspection..

It’s going to be an interesting race for the mens team in particular - with Jon Bracey on great form, Ben Bardsley’s brilliant fell runing pedigree and Jonny Morgan a man obsessed – Morganator tactics: ‘I’m gonna Red Line it the whole way and half kill myself tommorrow’.. it would be great to get someone into the top 30 again like Jonny did last time in 2006, but this is an extremely competitive discipline with racers brought in specifically for this one race, so we’ll see what happens in the morning.

A week off guiding but not off skis - as Jon Bracey, Jonny Morgan and I are all racing for the British Ski Mountaineering Team this week at the Ski Mountaineering World Championships, based in Champery in the Portes du Soleil region of Switzerland. It’s the rest day today thankfully, hence a bit of catching up on the blog reports:

Sunday kicked off with the individual races, held in very hot conditions indeed – Florent Perrier of France took the gold in the mens and Roberta Pedranzini for Italy in the womens.  We had 3 racers competing in the mens, with Carron Scrimgeour coming in 45th for a good mid field finish - closely followed by Ben Bardsley and Nick Wallis.

Monday night saw the relays, where the men came in 14th and Tuesday the team race and Junior individuals, where we pulled in our best results so far:

In the mens team race Carron Scrimgeour + Jon Bracey finished an excellent 21st with Al Powell + Jon Morgan close behind in 25th and Nick Wallis + Ben Bardsley 36th.

In the Cadet women Gabriel Lees finished a brilliant 8th and Liz Sverenson 12th, with Rupert Harold 25th in the Junior men and Nick Carnaghan 21st in the Cadet men.

Start of the womens individual race on Sunday

Carron on the second climb, mens individual race

Italy giving it everything on the final descent, mens individual

Currently we are lying in 13th in the National Rankings – ie one place ahead of the USA. Tommorrow it’s the vertical race, so we’ve spent much of the day pullling all possible weight off every piece of kit (especially the boots) for this very specialist uphill only race.

I was down in the southern French alps at Super Sauze yesterday, for the annual Ubayenne race.  There are courses for team and individual racers, with starts 15mins apart - so I arrived in good time and took a few photos of the team start before heading back to the car in order to strip down and warm up ready for the individual start. 

Arriving back at the assembly area there appeared to be a suspicious lack of racers and the start line was already being dismantled… it turned out I’d missed the slightly important announcement that both starts had been amalgamated into one! – ie a first class piece of muppetry from Mr Powell..

Having set off 10 mins late, things went rather better after that and I was very surprised to get kit checked at the finish – as somehow I’d managed to pull through the field up into 5th place by the line, so a pretty good result all things considered.  The race itself is over a good course, with various ridge sections on foot and an exposed arete with fixed ropes on the team race.  Adding in a good dose of spindrift and plenty of tree skiing mayhem on the final descent, made for great day out in a lovely corner of the alps.

 The Start – minus Al..

 Ragging it down through the forest on the final descent.