il Monte completo (the full Monte)

A combination of factors (6.30 am start, drinking too much wine and Ginepy - whatever the hell that was - with some geologists from Liverpool) meant that despite a second night of pleasantly cool air and comfortable sleeping conditions, this morning was a little more difficult than those previous. The god of clouds had evidently erred on the side of opacity overnight; the glorious views of the day before replaced by indistinct silhouettes against a thick white wall, the broken rocks that littered the ground now under a fading snowy blanket.

Despite all this, or maybe because of it, the temperature outside was rather temperate, and highly agreeable for mountain hiking. We set off, the field party wending its way up the trail like a malcoordinated snake, Professore Giorgio, our imported Alpine expert leading the way, pausing every couple of minutes to gesture with his hiking pole at some subtlety in the minerals of the bedrock, or some fancy folds or somesuch. Every time the party stopped, they would bunch up and block the trail, inevitably blocking some ice-axe bearing heroes in nylon trousers who were looking to yomp up Monte Rosa so they could whack some lumps off of its glaciers by lunchtime, or something like that.

The rocks were generally pretty, and occasionally gneiss. They were also rather comfortable (see below). The snow was thigh-deep in places, as we picked our way past some disused gold mines (complete with open air privy), and up towards the peak of Monte Rosa proper. In ten years, the glaciers had receded many hundreds of metres, and exposed many rock outcrops which had hitherto gone unseen - a boon for field geology, although no one was particularly enthusiastic about the reasons why it had happened. Eventually, we reached our final field stop, a blob (technical term) of eclogite (a rock that had been down to 60 kilometres' depth, and was somewhat mangled by the pressure) - conveniently near a cable car station - and were soon creaking down the mountainside back towards Alagna where the coach was parked.

The ride from Alagna back to Verbania was rapid - whereas on the way up we had tentatively tip-toed our way through the narrow streets and tiny villages, now we hurtled through them, bullying the other traffic out of the way (and inducing travel sickness in at least one member of our party). Our Italian bus driver was seemingly in something of a hurry to get back home, for some reason.