The North Face Ultra Tour du Mont Blanc
La Petite Trotte à Léon
Mick Kenyon / 10.09.2009
This is what we'd let ourselves in for as part of the races now encompassed in the Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc
o Non-competitive event for teams of 3 people, of whom at least 2 UTMB finishers
o Team of three inseparable from the start to the finish of the event.
o Course of about 245 km for about 21,000 meters of positive altitude change.
o Course following mapped paths, featured on a map made available to each but not signposted.
o 100% Mountain and Nature course (less than 5km of tarmacked roads).
o Start at 10pm on Tuesday 25th of August.
o To be completed by Sunday 30th August at 4.30pm.
o Event in complete autonomy with refreshments and rest at the different refuges passed through
We arrived on Monday evening to temperatures in the 30's. The registration wasn't until Tuesday so we had a little time to explore Chamonix and have a good feed. At the chalet Whymper where we were stopping was another British team taking on the challenge Team Martlet Kayak club, in total there was 3 British Teams, the all female Midget Gems making up the 3rd Team. It was a broken night's sleep with the nerves jangling and a massive thunderstorm echoing down the valley adding to the apprehensiveness.
Tuesday came and it was warm and humid which supported the predicted Thunderstorms for the first night of the race. At 4pm we went and registered and dropped off our 2nd bags (which we would collect at Morgex), there were no kit checks; the organizers said they trusted us and we would be foolish to skimp on any of the mandatory kit.
We were given a GPS tracker and 5 sets of batteries adding to the weight of the usual mandatory kit including sleeping bag liners, fleeces, jackets etc. and food required to get us round from refuge to refuge. We had already realized that we were not to be passing through many villages or towns in this year's event so needed to make sure we had enough food.
Following the kit check was a briefing; this was conducted in French with a very much briefer English translation!
At 7pm a meal was provided by the organizers, we made our way to the canteen briefly getting lost, hoping this wasn't a sign of things to come. The meal was a spag boll; this was to become a theme of the race! A few bottles of water were provided but these were all used up by the time we got to our turn, this left either beer or wine and with only 3 hours to the race we declined. We went back to the chalet for last minute faffing with bags and time to get changed into the running kit and visit the loo as many times as possible. The rain outside was getting heavier and we debated heavier waterproofs but decided to stick with our lightweight Haglofs Oz pullover jackets.
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