An Alpine Start Defined, Sort Of

Several of you have asked what an alpine start actually is. Technically speaking, it has to do with getting up at miserably early hours in the miserable cold to attempt hare-brained stunts, generally involving mountains. But that's just semantics.

When I think of an alpine start - and the excitement, nerves, challenge, and yearning tied up in the idea - I think of this passage from the great French alpinist Gaston Rebuffat:

This evening, as I write these lines, the desire seizes me to breathe the night air for a few minutes. It is winter, and cold. Hemmed in between two black masses of houses, fringed by the roofs of my narrow street, the stars seem to be moving slowing as I advance. "It's cold," I say to myself, "that's a good sign. The snow will be hard."

How stupid of me! Am I not in Paris, in the Rue des Grands-Augustins? But my street leads on to the quays where the Seine, with its sentinel trees, and the quiet night combine to recall nature, even in the heart of this great city. It is both early and late. It is the hour when mountaineers go out on to the hut terrace to scan the sky, test the wind and the snow. It is cold, and cold nights mean fine days. It is the time to light the lantern and start out....

Here in Paris I dream of high hills.

- Gaston Rebuffat, Paris, 1953

It's nearly 2AM here in Seattle, and I'm off to the Himalayas tomorrow morning. I'll be off the grid for the better part of the next two months: I won't be posting to this blog or replying to your emails/texts/facebook pokes until late October. Catch you on the flip side.

Here in Seattle I dream of high hills.

Jay