Haute Route Highlights D3

Cabane Mont Fort to Cabane Prafleuri
Via the Grand Désert, 18km, 850m ascent800m ascent. Wild.

Directly centre in this picture should be a 4300m Alpine giant, the Grand Combin.

Thank you for all the love given to yesterday's magical moments,  today had a few too.

This is a tough day out. On the right day its a wonderful wild place to be, on any day its a privilege to be here. But on the wrong day, it can be all sorts of hell. Barren, featureless, high and hard. The very last place you want something to go wrong.

The forecast was, to put it mildly, cause for concern. We'd raced the storms into Mont Fort, and the Eastern Alps had a severe weather warning, 4 inches of rain, gale force winds, thunder, and snow down to 3000m. Perfect conditions for rockfall, hypothermia and losing your way. Great. Just great.
I spent long into the night reading forecasts, looking at options, watching live weather radar. I went to sleep as lightening lit the sky, thunder booming from the high cols. I'd a plan A, B, C, but I knew the bravest choice might well be to tell the clients no.

Waking it looked grim but much better than the forecasts, the weather radar made me think we could race the rain. For now it was wet, but not horrendous. We were out first and early, onto the Sentier du Chamois, à high impossible seeming trail, both above and beneath the clouds. We reached the Col du Ternim in the cloud, the walk though, the best day walk in the Alps, hadn't disappointed. Magical moments in the mist shared with fleeting chamois and proud bouquetin, inversion below, roiling clouds above. 
It's then à long traverse to the high Col du Louvie, the path loose and precipitous, but moments, desperately hopeful moments glimpsed through the cloud, even the Louvie Lac, today's blip. A tough slippery wet climb, the rain coming in waves of cloud, but, but breaks between, glimpses of high peaks. Hope. 
At the Col our endeavour was rewarded - a long view of clarity a moment - I took a bearing across the desert, three points I knew I couldn't miss, then the cloud rolled back in. Yes there are markers every few hundred feet. On a good day they are joyful ticks, on a day like today they're desperately hard to see. But now we had a path, now the desert could be crossed. 
I'd a plan to move fast, we needed to cross glacial streams before the rain rose them too far, in the end we had wet feet, but stayed upright. Compared to the later groups that was a result.
As we hit the high rock band at 2900m the light rain turned to stinging sleet, then hail, then a brief flurry of snow. We picked up our pace. One more high col. The clients were epic, gave their all.
Mètres shy of the Col du Plafleuri an explosion of thunder, so close, we were over and heading down as the heavens opened.
But as we lost height quickly the rain warmed, the ferocity dropped the storm passing thankfully South and West of us.
We braved the day, planning and persévérance, clients prepared to push hard, magical moments, they all saw us reach the (utterely chaotic) cabin in surprisingly high spirits.
Some days I earn my keep and its a wonderful feeling.