Not a great nights sleep in the refuge as a storm blew for quite a while. When I last looked at my watch it was 12.30 you don't really sleep just drift in and out. Woke again at 3.30am as Phillipe was collecting us at 4 didn't go back to sleep, breakfast was dry cereal, an orange, slice of bread and butter and a cup of tea. By the time we have our gear on its 5am but still dark and spitting with rain, we should arrive at the next hut in 3 hours, but its a slow start we are the first group to leave the refuge but by the time we reach the snow field we have been passed by 3 groups. Time to put the crampons on and rope up and slowly tackle this massive snow field, its light now so the headlamps can come off. Its becoming very apparent that Samara is struggling, it's one step, two step rest, initial thoughts are if she manages to summit Mont Blanc it will take a lot of courage and determination. It takes us nearly 5 hours to reach switzerland it should have taken 2 the rest of the party are getting a little agitated the slow pace is akin to an 8000 metre summit attempt. To take my mind off things I call Rachel as not sure how much signal we will get at 3300m, I wake her up with my call, its good to hear her voice, unfortunately boys not up then I lose signal. 4km to the swiss hut at this rate it will take another 2 hours. The worry is, does walking this slow help us or will it work against us on wednesday when we ascend fast to the gutier hut before the early morning push? I still feel strong and am recovering fast from any exertions, however the first sign of altitude sickness hits us, young Phillipes nose just starts bleeding, he's ok but this shows just how fast it happens. We finally reach the hut, Phillipe, Simon and I have been messing around bit to take away the boredom of this pace, we have been in crampons all day. At the base of the hut there is a 50 metre rock fall that we have to scramble up although we are last on it being at the back we race up to the top, we arrive nearly 30minutes before Samara. The swiss hut is luxury compared to the Albert Hut, proper toilets, just need to force myself to go! We arrived at 11am taking us 6 hours, twice as long as it should have took. We feel frustrated! lunch now then some more training this afternoon, you get the feeling our guide started us early as he knew how long it would take Samara to get here, the worrying thing is it makes tomorrow a very long day and we need to rest for thursday and friday.
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