Jose Gray

This was one of the more memorable mornings of my three week trip to the alps. Earlier on in the trip my brother had hurt his leg and so had gone home, leaving me to complete the trip solo. I spent this last week of the trip staying in Italian bivouacs, small huts stuck in unlikely places in the mountains that are free to stay in, similar to Scottish bothies. This morning I had the biv to myself and set an early alarm (4.30.. ouch) to get up to a ridge, at 2697m above sea level, before sunrise. On the map the route was marked with a dotted line which meant "narrow path difficult, not always marked" but it wasn't a hugely long way and my bag was fairly light (aka i was running out of food). The route was well enough marked that I followed it with no trouble in the dark, however this left it to being difficult. What followed is the most committing and exposed scramble I have done, with significant sections relying on an old rusty chain that was hopefully well anchored to a solid bit of rock, with an increasingly steep drop.  There was a short section that I got to three times where I then called it quits and decided to go back down to and reassess, not worth the risk, I didn't really need to get to the ridge. On the fourth attempt I manged to muster up some more courage/stupidity and pushed on. I reached the ridge only a few minutes before sunrise after the delay.

The view was absolutely stunning for two reasons: there was mountain peaks stretching far into the distance and the way down the other side looked much easier to negotiate. My favourite photos of the morning was taken pretty soon after, once my hands had stopped shaking.