Mountain high, mood low

I had to write something for my travel writing course...

This happened to me in 1999. The story is- for the most part- fact. How we managed to get back to civilisation however, has been sprinkled with a little fiction.

Food trails in the French Alps

The passion for the region’s cheeses, breads and pates has long been alive in my family and, like finding the source of a great river, I wanted to explore the origin of this food, to uncover its secrets. The emotional and physical pull of this food was the first secret I would learn…

We were lost. We’d been lost for the last hour or so but no one was brave enough to say it. The cold and thirst were our physical threats. The hunger was both a threat and a lifeline. All we could think about was food.

I’m cross-country skiing in the French Alps, near the Italian border. I left Les Saisies, a tiny resort town in the foothills of Mont Blanc, almost four hours ago. The Mont Blanc (white mountain), standing at 4 808m, is the highest mountain in Western Europe. Today, its thick and perennial white ice peak flashes in and out of view behind white clouds. When the peak can be seen, a postcard-perfect background frames my first cross-country skiing experience.

Lucie and Olivier, a friendly French couple from Lyon whom I met at my hostel, accompany me. Between my broken French and their broken English, we understand each other. They tell me a little about the region, particularly their love of a small town nearby- Beaufort and it’s Swiss-like cheese of the same name. They give me tips on my skiing technique- “move forward” I hear a lot, assuming it means, “lean forward,” though they may just be berating my slowness on the trail.

We would simply stick to the clearly marked trail, right? The trail looped around like an oversized athletics track, so that we would predictably finish where we began in no more than two hours’- back before dark.

But the trail stops. We have not come across a marker for some time, and turn back only to find the light snowfall was not light enough- our own tracks have been buried under a fine layer of powder snow. Cold air from the Mont Blanc has descended into our valley and it is difficult to see even five metres in front of us. Patches of forest, and- more worryingly- changes in slope and snow cover can no longer be anticipated.

A team decision, and we give up trying to retrace our steps and opt to press on, hoping that another marker will direct our way soon- then it could not be more than a kilometre before arriving back in Les Saisies. Through squinted eyes, we see no marker.

It is snowing heavier now, and we can feel our skis are sinking further and further into the snow, making it almost impossible to move more than a few centimetres with each step. The temperature bites suddenly, as though it has dropped 20 degrees in minutes, and snow has managed to find its way inside our boots, turning our feet into heavy iceblocks.

Lucie and I begin to panic. Between chattering teeth, Lucie curses something angrily in French. I begin to imagine the search party that would find us the next day, too late, our bodies sacrificed to the Mont Blanc. It would be a typical “tourists underestimate weather” story that puts all fault on the stupidity of the travellers, sympathy coming only from our families. I think of the two burly St. Bernard dogs outside she ski-hire shop. They are too old now to rescue us with a barrel of rum around their thick necks- they are retired and serve only as a pseudo-tourist attraction for the town.

Only Olivier remains calm and optimistic, assuring us that the town could not be more than half an hour away, that we would soon be drinking steamy chocolat chaud and dipping soft white bread into a bubbly, velvety mixture of cheeses, the prototypical fondue for which the region was famous.

With this, we step up the pace. A snow-white rabbit, sensing our hurry, skirts out of the fog into view, only to disappear into a patch of forest. Olivier begins to talk about food again- rabbit and red wine stew (ragout de lapin) his mother makes on special occasions.

My mind firmly on being alive long enough to taste such a wonderful dish, I follow the rabbit’s own trail towards some conifers. A hallucination- I see lights coming through the trees to our left. Lucie and Olivier agree- I am not hallucinating- these are lights. We are soon met with the sight of a farmhouse.

The residents- a dairy farmer, his wife and son- quickly usher us in from the cold and we are instantly hit with the warm smells of a Savoie kitchen. The family try, without much success, to hide their amusement at our ordeal. Lucie is in histrionics and Olivier looks relieved but also amused at Lucie's exasperation. I have removed my boots, hold one foot at a time in my hands, and look around the kitchen- there are pots bubbling away on the stove, flour dusted like snow on the benches, bread baking, and mouldy cheeses stacked to the ceiling along stone walls. The farmer tells us we are not in Les Saisies but in Beaufort. As though reading our minds, he mentions that the mouldless cheeses are kept in another house altogether, ripening patiently. We would not be allowed to leave until we had had our fill of his family’s produce.

As we are revived by the cheese, bread and cassoulet- a dish of white beans, pork stomach and duck- rich by design to provide energy for peasant farmers working long hours in cold conditions (or perhaps lost and forlorn travellers!). I wondered at the powerful magnetic pull this food had offered. Food had never tasted so good, but the thought of it had been it’s ultimate gift.