It was a freezing December day when mountain information Kingsley Jones first noticed a rescue monk in motion. He was main a small group up the ominously named Combe des Morts when he handed by a rescue hut – considered one of many who dot this avalanche-prone space – and seen a lady inside struggling within the freezing chilly. He provided his help and she or he informed him she’d already phoned for assist. And it quickly arrived, within the type of an Augustine monk – on skis, outfitted with a sizzling flask of grenadine and heat layers, who escorted her to the protection of close by Hospice du Grand St Bernard, a monastery and travellers’ hostel on Col du Mont-Joux at 2,473m.
This type of rescue has taken place within the mountain passes round Col du St Bernard on the Swiss-Italian border since 1050. And regardless of the adjustments in outside gear, modes of rescue and avalanche locator know-how over the centuries, the hospice (arrange by St Bernard of Aosta to supply refuge to pilgrims strolling the Through Francigena pilgrim path from Canterbury to Rome) has remained largely unchanged.
The day I head there was freed from rescue drama, although freezing chilly at round -20C. My buddy Dan and I had employed a automobile from Geneva and left it within the Tremendous St Bernard automobile park simply earlier than Italian customs. It wasn’t my first time right here in winter – that had been over a decade earlier, with a bunch and information like Kingsley. However this time – having performed extra snowshoeing and winter expertise programs within the interim, and with our personal transceivers and snow shovels and after checking avalanche circumstances – we set off for the hospice alone.
Two years in the past, I got here right here in summer time, too, and located the roads (now plastered in thick glowing snow) stuffed with coachloads of vacationers. But for seven months of the yr (from November to Could) solely skiers or snowshoers are capable of go to, and the environment out on the mountains and contained in the hospice is remodeled right into a silent place of contemplation.
The Combe des Morts was so named due to the excessive threat of avalanche, and why Bernard of Menthon arrange the monastery right here – with the doorways at all times open for these in want looking for shelter.
On the day Dan and I set out, it was sunny with little wind, and we moved quick. Earlier than lengthy, we handed the rescue hut the place a ceramic signal hooked up to the stone partitions reads: “St Bernard information nos pas”.
Bernard died in 1081, and in 1681 was canonised, changing into the patron saint of mountaineers. After our three-mile stroll in, the white partitions of the hospice appeared, a statue of St Bernard alongside, with the satan shackled in chains at his ft – representing the mastering of perils that Alpinists face.
Kingsley has been main journeys to the hospice for greater than 25 years with Icicle Mountaineering, based mostly within the Lake District, and earlier than my journey he informed me that the kind of individuals coming has modified throughout that point.
“It used to solely be skiers – primarily Swiss and older individuals,” he stated. “However then snowshoers began coming, the crowds slowly bought youthful too, with many between 20 and 30. Now even some households make the journey and the North People appear to have heard about it as properly.”
Whereas many used to view the hostel as a useful base from which to climb close by Mount Fourchon and the encircling peaks, as we speak it’s the non secular facet of it that appears to enchantment to most, Kingsley stated: “Stepping into by means of that hospice door, strolling previous the rescue sledges nonetheless used as they might have been within the eleventh century, is extremely atmospheric and appeals to a big cross part of individuals.”
When Dan and I arrived there was already a celebration of Swiss ski-mountaineers sipping candy tea, pouring over maps, a bunch of Britons with a information, and a woman and her associate from the US (the hostel sleeps about 80 throughout two flooring). Three resident monks (referred to as canons) are right here throughout the winter, in addition to a handful of lay volunteers. I chat to 1, Pascal, in his mid-20s and from France, who got here right here for a while out to consider what to do subsequent together with his life.
After a meal of sizzling soup adopted by a easy serving of meat and two veg, it was time for mass. As a non-religious soul, I wouldn’t usually sit by means of it, however up right here, held in a easy, stone underground crypt with thick partitions providing safety from the snowstorm constructing outdoors, I couldn’t resist. With solely schoolgirl French, I didn’t perceive most of what was stated, however the softly spoken phrases and monks’ tune had been extremely soothing. Afterwards, I headed straight to my dorm, cocooning myself within the thick blankets and spot how little issues have modified since my final go to.
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The subsequent day, after we’d wandered to the Col Ouest de Barasson and again to see down from Switzerland into Italy, Pascal confirmed us the onsite meals shops with big truckles of native cheese and wine (Napoleon and his males are stated to have drunk greater than 22,000 bottles of it in 1800 – racking up a invoice that was solely paid in 1984 by then French president François Mitterrand). Afterwards, one of many monks led us to the attic the place a small museum charts the historical past of the constructing and it’s much more well-known former residents – the St Bernard rescue canine.
Bred right here since not less than the early 1700s (when data started), the canine had been adept at sniffing out individuals buried in avalanches and their picture has discovered its means into books, work and cartoons. With the appearance of thermal imaging cameras and helicopters, these 70kg residents grew to become superfluous and too costly to maintain right here, however they nonetheless have a house down the mountain in Martigny at Barryland – a breeding kennels and guests centre – and get to come back again to go to each summer time and meet the numerous vacationers. In winter, the one specimen is a stuffed St Bernard from 1800, which is claimed to have saved greater than 40 lives.
On the ultimate morning it’s a wrench to go away. I’ve spent as lengthy studying by the window and watching the blizzard, as I’ve mountain climbing, and I really feel unusually refreshed.
As we stroll again by means of the snow, I recall a line from St Bernard’s prayer: “After having loved the fantastic thing about nature, we return to our responsibility extra cheerful and stronger.” Having spent a snug weekend on this frozen wonderland, surrounded by historical past, mountain lovers and rescue monks, I don’t should be a Catholic to say “Amen” to that.
Icicle affords a guided three-day/two-night snowshoeing to Grand St Bernard Hopsice expertise from £549pp. Phoebe Smith is writer of Wayfarer: Love, Loss and Life on Britain’s Historical Paths, obtainable from the Guardian Bookshop and shortlisted for the Edward Stanford Journey E book of the 12 months 2025
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