Too High, Too Quick

This weekend myself and phil attempted to climb Mont Blanc to try and raise some money for my close Friend. In August this year I lost a close Friend to cancer, A Friend that always managed to put a smile on every ones face before her own, a Friend that was a wonderful person and will never be forgotten.

Myself and Phil decided to try and raise some money for the Eden ward ( The ward that looked after carli throughout her illness) by attempting to climb Mont Blanc in a weekend trip. We both knew how crazy this was but after summiting the Matterhorn in a weekend trip last year we knew it was possible. We arrived in Chamonix around 1pm on the Friday giving just enough time to stock up on food, drop our bag at our Friend Kat's and push on up the hill to start our attempt. Our plan was to cross the glacier and bivi in the abri simmond shelter at the foot of the cosmiques ridge before setting off for the summit around 1am. when we arrived around at the cosmiques we noticed that the main hut was open so with no persuasion we decided to see if there were any room available in the hut. we were lucky and there was.... we sat down to a lovely portion of soup, veg and pasta with a nice bit of chocolate cake when Phil started to feel abit under the weather, he was coming down with altitude sickness and was struggling to keep his food down, I was a little worried at this time has he kept vomiting and didn't look too good, we decided to get our heads down for the night to see if this would help...

I probably had the worst night of my life in the mountains, I also came down with altitude sickness with the worst headache in the world and vomiting blood, I didn't get any sleep at all, morning arrived and things were not looking any better so we decided it would be best for us to make our way back across the glacier to the auguille du midi where we could get back down to the valley to safety. Absolute gutted and feeling worst for wear we arrive back down in chamonix, only having the weekend we were unable to attempt the mountain again. I now know how fast Altitude sickness can creep up on you and its actually quite scary. I want to thank everyone that sponsored me for this attempt and also Kat for putting us up and helping us with our gear, and especially Phil for being a good climbing partner and a pleasure to climb with.