After a morning of packing kit and equipment into 2 sleds we, accompanied by a cameraman director (Gavin Campbell freelancing on this project for BFBS), headed into the relative wilderness, and higher altitude for our next night out. The aim of this short trip was to rehearse what we would do at the end of the day and at the start of each morning, and would involve us going through the monotony of stopping often, putting up the tent, putting kit into the tent to the point of getting the stove ready to go – and then reversing the process and getting the kit packed away. The difficulty we faced was using training pulks did not exactly replicate what we would be doing but its the start of the process.
As expected Matt called ‘prep to move’ ahead of the discussed time, and as the snow had been falling heavily all day we were unable to get our wagon up the hill to where we had hoped to start. But as there was a good covering off snow it allowed us to haul the sleds up and out of the resort and onto local tracks leading to the valley we intended to train in.
We hauled for over 3 hours, in places through knee-deep snow, until we found a suitable area to set-up camp. Before setting up the tents we attempted to compact about a metre of powder snow to give us a firm base. Then the fun started, the tent which we had brought out for Gavin to use, proved to be complex, which given we were attempting to put up in virtual blizzard and being filmed, made us look somewhat comical. But then came our tent, which we had up in less than 3 minutes, 5 minutes later the stove was on, and Jules settled in ready to cook. The evening’s delights were Mild Beef Curry, Beef and Ale Stew and Beef and Potato Hotpot. As before the routine was 2 mouthfuls each before rotating the meals to ensure we got to taste, and subsequently rate (out of 10) each one – Beef and Ale Stew = 7, Mild Beef Curry = 7, Beef and Potato Hotpot = 6. For dessert it was Chocolate and Orange Rice Pudding (scored 7) and Rice Pudding with Fruit (scored 7). After a hot drink it was to bed for 9pm!! There isn’t much to do out there after nightfall.
In the morning we were up at first light, ate breakfast and melted snow for our water bottles for the day ahead. The temperature was hovering at minus 16 and the sky was clear. We could see the sun on some distant mountains but we would not experience any of the sunshine until in made its way into the deep valley, which would not be for some hours.
After breaking camp we continued up the valley. We had chosen this particular valley as it was a perfect area for us to haul the sleds, get used to the boots, skis and allowing us to rehearse our daily administration – tent up, stove on, kit in and then the reverse. We spent the day shuttling up and down the valley doing exactly this, fine-tuning our drills, which also enabled the cameraman director to get some good footage of us.
By around 4pm we had achieved all we could in the day and so we headed back to Courchevel before nightfall. The trek back was easier going then the day before as we re-used our tracks through the snow. All in all another successful night out, experimenting with clothing and equipment and getting used to hauling in the boots and skis, more food tasted, and a 2-man routine established for setting up camp.
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