Tom Povey falls in love with the mountains.

I woke at 4am with a strange feeling. Something was wrong, and then I remembered what it was. I was somewhere high in foothills of the Italian Alps, cramped into the back of a rusting Maestro van with a man I barely knew. Worse still, a numbing cold had crept through the thin layer of my inadequate sleeping bag, and my limbs resembled a collection of long white tubers.

I wondered for a moment if in some hideous mistake I had ended up on a mortuary slab, but then the aching cold in my head told me that unfortunately I had not. I was horribly alive. If I was to endure suffering like this I was certain it would not be alone. I fumbled at a fluorescent tube. It flashed into life and illuminated the stark white walls. I had expected to find my companion in similar agony, probably contorted in some complicated effort known by mountaineers to ensure survival in such doubtful circumstances. Instead I was confronted with a man who was enjoying the sleep of the just. My heart sank.

When the sun rose it warmed the van and breathed life back into my parched limbs. Drinking coffee, I stared up at the Matterhorn. We were, as we had hoped when we pulled up beside a river late the previous night, near the town of Chervinia, on the Italian side of the mountain. It was nothing less than a glorious spot to wake up. So impressive was the architecture of the valley, that it was 10am before the sun had hit the van. We were surrounded on all sides by the snarled teeth of mountains, protruding from pale gum-like glaciers, and rising higher than any mountains I had seen. I looked up at the Matterhorn, sipped my coffee, and sagely remarked that it looked like a good long day of climbing.

“It’s three days actually.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, it’s three days of climbing.”
“So you want to sleep up there?”

It suddenly dawned on me that my friend was a lunatic. I had failed to realise this when he had invited me to join him for this climb, and had assured me that neither experience nor equipment was necessary. I looked up at the mountain and suddenly remembered our telephone conversation in London. John had calmly remarked: “You’ll probably need a waterproof.” We made our way slowly out of the foothills and breathed in the rich air of the countryside. Dung steamed in the blazing sun, and butterflies flitted amongst the rough grass. We passed some cows grazing by a stream. It seemed that the whole world was alive, from the gigantic clouds scudding over the tops around us, to the flies dancing a jig on my nose. It put me in such a great mood that I even forgot how ridiculous the venture was. My bag pulled hard on my shoulders, and I remarked that we had done well to leave the axes and crampons behind. John had argued that we should take them as a precaution, until I pointed out that we did not know how to use them, and would probably just end up injuring ourselves. I proved my point quite convincingly when I lashed the devices to my summer walking boots, only to discover that they slipped off at the first step, to be left dangling like some prototype medieval shoe weapon. They were bloody useless. The mountain looked dangerous enough without adding bizarre weaponry to the cocktail of hazards we would have to face.

Higher, the path steepened, until we were working our way along precipitous ledges that shelved off to even steeper rock below. A mad wind whistled through a vast cleft in the granite walls above us, whipping thick swirls of mist across the border into Switzerland. High above us, perched atop a gigantic gendarmed ridge like a huge eagle’s nest, was the Carrel Hut. I looked up at our goal. It was fortified on all sides by vertical flanks of icy stone. It had all the absurdity of a child’s drawing of some impossible place, and I prayed that John, recognising the evident absurdity of our predicament, would see reason and call retreat. We climbed upward, and he was as jaunty as ever. At the hut we realised we had forgotten to bring water, and I lowered John on a rope down an ice cliff until he returned, smiling, with a helmet full of ice. We were being watched by a bemused Italian mountain guide, who, on discovering we were English, burst into fits of laughter and promptly disappeared inside. Our tea was gritty, but good.

The room was full of life. I lay in darkness, and listened to the bump bump of mountaineers packing bags full of things that mountaineers pack into bags. I did not feel rested. I looked at my watch. It was only 4 am. I wondered what was wrong. I shouldered John into life and he muttered something about an early start, then promptly fell asleep. I woke him up again, and asked him to explain why twenty or so unnaturally healthy looking climbers had decided to get out of warm beds, and walk into the night.
I was exhausted and my head was pounding.

My handkerchief, which was stored in my inner pair of trousers, had frozen several hours before, and now mucus ran freely onto my lapel, where it also immediately solidified. I made a mental note to remind John there had been no mention of frozen mucus. I scrabbled on all fours up a dangerously steep slab, the hundredth of the day, and suddenly realised this one was different to the others. It was the last, and above me was only air. The summit was just large enough for luncheon, and we spread out all the food we had on my new waterproof. I decided to sit in Italy, whilst John chose Switzerland. Undisturbed at our table for almost two hours, we savoured the dramatic surroundings and I realised that John had given me one of the greatest gifts of my life. It was over lunch that I fell in love with the mountains.

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