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Chapelle-en-Valgaudemar, I felt as much out of my own world as if I had suddenly been transported to Tibet. Everything in this valley was new to me, both man and nature. There were no elegant rock spires soaring into the sky like flames, no imposing glaciers to gladden the heart with the contrast of their whiteness against the blue of the sky and the green of the meadows. There were no fat pastures speckled with flowers; no prosperous-looking herds with bells tinkling among the peace of nature; no big chalets with wide, pine-shingled roofs looking as though built to last forever; no noisy bands of tourists; no mechanical contrivances disturbing the solitude of the summits.
Here nature was in a harsher mood, but remained almost unspoiled. The inhabitants seemed to be living in another century. The mountains with their rounded crests resembled ruined castles, their dark walls mouldering into vast screes and arid patches of scraggy grass. Only a few dirty snow-gullies and moraine-covered glaciers relieved the sternness of the scene. At the foot of these somewhat unattractive summits was squeezed the valley, where men, apparently hardly out of the Middle Ages, lived wretchedly in moss-thatched hovels, fighting with a hostile nature for every inch of cultivable earth. Right up to the very edge of the mountain little fields of low grass and thinly sown com showed among the wastes of boulders like a green and yellow patchwork quilt.
In the village of La Chapelle the tarmacked road and a few small hotels formed the outpost of the modern world, but as one went farther up the valley the signs of civilisation gradually faded out. At the very end was the hamlet of Rif-du-Sap, perched between two avalanche gullies, where life was as primitive as in many parts of the Himalaya. Nevertheless the bareness and rusticity of Valgaudemar did have a certain austere poetry about them. They gave just the same kind of feeling of being at the ends of the earth that I recognised again with delight when, years later, I visited the remote mountains of Asia and America.
The J.M. Central School occupied a few old buildings in the middle of La Chapelle. Since we were going simultaneously through the courses for team leaders and rope leaders, we led a life so hard and active that, if I did not still possess notes made at the time, I would be tempted to think my memory guilty of exaggerating.
The ascents that we did every week were in a different style from what I was used to in the Mont Blanc range. There was comparatively little rock climbing about them, and what there was was seldom very difficult. These great rubbish heaps of mountains were more a question of unending trudges among steep, slippery grass, rabbit warrens, and moraines of loose boulders. The habit of the school was to send us up to remote huts loaded like mules and at competition speed. In the same way, climbs were carried out at such speed that the majority of students ended up in a state of complete exhaustion. Given the fact that in those days there was very little food around, these mountain trips were profoundly tiring even for the toughest, and when we got back to the Centre after three or four days we were all more or less done in.
But we were far from being allowed to rest for the remainder of the week. An iron discipline imposed ten to fourteen hours of work every day. We were up at six, and it was usual for us to get back to our beds at midnight without having had any other time off than what was necessary for meals â if one could so term the absorption of a few ill-cooked vegetables, whose main nutritive value came from the in-numerable flies stuck to the plate.
The day would begin with perhaps three-quarters of an hour of high-speed physical training. The rest of the morning would be spent at some kind of manual labour, wood fatigue or improving mountain tracks. The afternoons began with a rock climbing session on a small local crag, followed by lectures or study. After
Here nature was in a harsher mood, but remained almost unspoiled. The inhabitants seemed to be living in another century. The mountains with their rounded crests resembled ruined castles, their dark walls mouldering into vast screes and arid patches of scraggy grass. Only a few dirty snow-gullies and moraine-covered glaciers relieved the sternness of the scene. At the foot of these somewhat unattractive summits was squeezed the valley, where men, apparently hardly out of the Middle Ages, lived wretchedly in moss-thatched hovels, fighting with a hostile nature for every inch of cultivable earth. Right up to the very edge of the mountain little fields of low grass and thinly sown com showed among the wastes of boulders like a green and yellow patchwork quilt.
In the village of La Chapelle the tarmacked road and a few small hotels formed the outpost of the modern world, but as one went farther up the valley the signs of civilisation gradually faded out. At the very end was the hamlet of Rif-du-Sap, perched between two avalanche gullies, where life was as primitive as in many parts of the Himalaya. Nevertheless the bareness and rusticity of Valgaudemar did have a certain austere poetry about them. They gave just the same kind of feeling of being at the ends of the earth that I recognised again with delight when, years later, I visited the remote mountains of Asia and America.
The J.M. Central School occupied a few old buildings in the middle of La Chapelle. Since we were going simultaneously through the courses for team leaders and rope leaders, we led a life so hard and active that, if I did not still possess notes made at the time, I would be tempted to think my memory guilty of exaggerating.
The ascents that we did every week were in a different style from what I was used to in the Mont Blanc range. There was comparatively little rock climbing about them, and what there was was seldom very difficult. These great rubbish heaps of mountains were more a question of unending trudges among steep, slippery grass, rabbit warrens, and moraines of loose boulders. The habit of the school was to send us up to remote huts loaded like mules and at competition speed. In the same way, climbs were carried out at such speed that the majority of students ended up in a state of complete exhaustion. Given the fact that in those days there was very little food around, these mountain trips were profoundly tiring even for the toughest, and when we got back to the Centre after three or four days we were all more or less done in.
But we were far from being allowed to rest for the remainder of the week. An iron discipline imposed ten to fourteen hours of work every day. We were up at six, and it was usual for us to get back to our beds at midnight without having had any other time off than what was necessary for meals â if one could so term the absorption of a few ill-cooked vegetables, whose main nutritive value came from the in-numerable flies stuck to the plate.
The day would begin with perhaps three-quarters of an hour of high-speed physical training. The rest of the morning would be spent at some kind of manual labour, wood fatigue or improving mountain tracks. The afternoons began with a rock climbing session on a small local crag, followed by lectures or study. After
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