We drove up to and through La Rosière, the place where the family had our first week of skiing, back in nineteen ninety something and we have been back once in the summer and I’ve been back once for skiing, a few years ago. This was the apartment that our group rented then.
Above La Ros, as the locals call it, the road is the Col du Petite San Bernard which rises to 2,188m. This is closed all winter. We drove almost to the top, parked near the old hospice, now a large summer refuge and started on a walk to a mountain lake, Lac sans Fond (Bottomless lake).
It’s early summer with grass starting to grow and flowers appearing everywhere.
Winter has only just finished though and the distant small snow patches are actually big and lots of water is running off and the edges are crumbly and deep. Soon, walking the path became tricky and it was already steep enough to cause that heavy feeling in my chest (2,000m doesn’t help).
We just needed to be careful, as we don’t have experience of walking on steep snow. I imagine that a slip in the wrong place would result in a slide. This might be fun or might not.
The walk was good but the access down to the lake (in the corrie) wasn’t possible and anyway it was covered in snow and ice, so carrying a swimming costume had been unnecessary.
On the way down we met two ladies from Melbourne. I assume that they identify as females but in trying ti keep up with the modern news from home, I wouldn’t be totally sure. I was careful to ask “Where are you both from”, rather than “Hey, you look like a fine pair of Sheilas”.
One had already broken through the soft crust of a snow patch and was only stopped by her thighs. A fine Sheila indeed. They were happy to hear that attempting the lake wasn’t advisable.
We continued down and the Landy was still there, dwarfed by the scale of things, on the pass. We had lunch sitting outside it, in the sun.
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