Petite Trotte à Léon 2023 (350 km, 28k m D+)

Posted on September 15th, 2023

Words & Photos: Filippo Canetta

Maybe it's true, after all, that "outside our comfort zone is where the magic happens."

Every time I get close to starting something far bigger than myself, a pleasant sense of peace washes over me. I live a life that's always rushing, where optimizing time is essential just to get everything done. If I run into a problem, I have to solve it as fast as humanly possible. I can't afford to waste even a second. That mindset bleeds into almost every race I take part in too.

Every time, I wonder if I'll still be capable of pulling something like this off, and if I think about it rationally, it always seems impossible.

At PTL, everything's so wildly off-scale that trying to predict what you're actually walking into is completely futile. I know the path itself will guide me, and that it's better to leave all worries behind, back at lower altitude.

That's the spirit of this race, which has been running behind the scenes of the far more famous Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc for fourteen years now.

PTL is a Trail Running race, run in teams of 2 or 3, with no markers or signage along the route. Teams have to follow a track, or rather, The Track, capital T, no ifs, no buts, even when it leads straight off the beaten path. We'll travel, and it really is a journey, over more than 300 km and 24,000 m of elevation gain, fully self-sufficient, carrying all the gear needed to handle whatever the route throws at us. We can rely on a network of partner refuges, and there are two life bases where our drop bags will be waiting.

That's a really important difference compared to traditional races: we're self-sufficient! Which means we're free from the pressure of the clock. The backpack's heavy, but that frees us from the stress of calculating times and kilometers between resupplies.

As always, the first day is the toughest. Teams are jittery, tension hangs in the air. The three of us, me, Roberto and Davide, are, oddly, calm, and we let everyone else set their own pace. The weather's awful, rain and wind. Right away, to avoid soaking everything, we play our wildcard, the poncho, an essential piece of kit for adventures like this, staying lightly dressed underneath to avoid sweating on the first climb. We spot strange combinations of jackets and plastic bags on several competitors, mostly Asian runners, that make us doubt their odds of making it through day one unscathed. Once we hit 2,000 meters, the rain quickly turns to snow, and the moment the track veers off the trail and points us up a snow-covered scree field, panic breaks out. I can see doubt and worry painted across the other competitors' faces.

Some stop, unsure what to do, others try alternative paths, we know there's no other option but to follow the track. At the first traverse, a long line quickly forms, everyone feeling their way forward, several competitors, dressed in synthetic gear, slip and slide down the slope, only stopping a few hundred meters lower. The scene reminds me of photos of mountaineers waiting to push through the trickiest passages of Himalayan climbs. It's frustrating watching someone struggle and being unable to do anything to help. The air's freezing, and my hands, soaked from the rain despite waterproof gloves, start to go numb.

The wait is nerve-wracking, I tell my teammates behind me I'm going to push ahead, cutting across a ridge, I get past the bottleneck and catch up with a group moving a bit more steadily. Staying in motion lets me keep a decent body temperature. The moment the storm eases up a bit, I stop to wait for my teammates, worried about them. Luckily, after what feels like an incredibly long wait, I see them arriving. We check in with each other, everyone's fine, we eat something, and set off again. Eating constantly is essential.

Once the difficulty's behind us, we look around and, as will keep happening throughout, understand exactly why they wanted us to come this way. The mountains are stunning even wrapped in clouds, we're up level with one of Mont Blanc's glaciers, and get to admire it from a truly special angle.

After more than eight hours, we're still above Chamonix. In races like this, you have to learn to detach from the concept of "time," everything becomes relative, you can't dwell on how long it's taking or where you are, all that matters is moving forward, following the trail with dedication and faith.

I often think that situations like these bring us, privileged as we are to choose this ourselves, a bit closer to pilgrims, wanderers of the past, refugees fleeing countries where life's no longer possible. I once ran along trails in Bosnia, following the route Syrian refugees take trying to reach a European country willing to take them in, and I saw small camps made of tattered tents and sleeping bags, where people spend the night sheltered by the woods, waiting to resume their journey, hoping to avoid police patrols. With all due proportion, we too are, in a sense, homeless, doggedly following our own path.

Even though Roberto and I both think Davide's doing okay, he keeps swinging between stretches where he runs as if in a trance, and moments where he slows down, almost struggling to walk. He's no longer convinced this is what he wants to be doing. Here too, all we can do is keep moving, hoping it passes. To avoid piling pressure on him, we decide to take turns staying by his side, one of us stays slightly ahead, the other stays with him. We're all oddly quiet, probably each of us wrestling with our own demons.

An unwritten rule says you never sleep the first night.

The weather gives us no break, and the moment we cross 2,000 m, frozen snow starts battering our faces. We can't afford to linger too long in those conditions, and need to push toward the first refuge on the route, at kilometer 66. The excitement of the start has faded, and, wrapped in low clouds, we move alongside other teams, sharing the best tips for following the track in such poor visibility. As we're getting close to the refuge, I start feeling cold, we've passed a team of friends, I know they're behind us, and on a descent I pull ahead to warm up. After a stretch of easy terrain, I turn to check, and can't see Roberto or Davide anymore. I ask others if they've spotted them. I know Davide has the navigation gear, though, in a crowd like this, all you really need to do is follow along, like I've been doing. I try calling, but there's no signal. I wait a few minutes, standing still, trying to pick them out among the other competitors, but can't find them. I start feeling cold again. I know you're not supposed to, but there are two of them and I feel alone right now, I decide to keep moving slowly toward the refuge, where, unsurprisingly, I don't find them either. Shortly after, our friends arrive, the ones we'd passed together before our little chain broke apart. Still no sign of the other two. I keep glancing out the door, hoping to catch sight of their faces. The refuge looks like a Red Cross camp, outside, in the snow, hundreds of shoes and trail poles lie scattered everywhere. Finally, looking absolutely wrecked, they arrive. The first words Roby says to me are: "Davide's dropping." I feel even more guilty for having left them behind. We're less than two hours from the cutoff, we need to figure out what to do, fast. We try convincing Davide otherwise, but he seems quite determined, and almost relieved by the decision.

We eat what'll become our standard breakfast, lunch and dinner for the next five days: soup, pasta with ragù (or, as the French say, "à la bolognaise"), and a small dessert.

Just like during Eiger Ultra Trail in Andorra, after spending nearly 24 hours outdoors, being stuck indoors surrounded by so many people becomes almost unbearable. We say goodbye to Davide and get moving again. By now, we need air, open space. Our minds are rewiring themselves to stay constantly in motion.

It's a rhythm I know well by now, after covering so many kilometers with Roby together: him up front, setting the pace, me behind, guiding him by following the track. We push forward, regardless of terrain, gradient or weather conditions, mind blank, as if driven by some outside force. We move fast but quiet, through mud and snow that just won't let up.

We know we have to hold out for two and a half days, and maybe, by Wednesday afternoon, the bad weather might finally break.

We're usually always cracking jokes, especially in the most extreme, absurd situations, but this time Roberto's unusually, worryingly, quiet. I try to figure out what's wrong. He, the rock I've always counted on leaning on in tough moments, tells me he's struggling badly, his foot hurts, and the cold's taken a toll on his legs and lungs. Going from 40°C in Milan last Friday to -11°C at Col du Présset hasn't left either of us unscathed. Honestly, we've been running the whole time in Bryce shorts, when we could have at least switched to the Badlands half tights.

The weather conditions still don't allow us to stop, we absolutely have to reach kilometer 133, the Hospice du Petit-Saint-Bernard, which, unfortunately, isn't exactly around the corner.

Up to this point, navigation had felt fairly straightforward, and we hadn't run into any real trouble, and I'm really pleased with how much I've improved in that department. But, as always at PTL, you can't rest on your laurels. Roby starts hallucinating, seeing small black animals darting along the sides of the trail, a classic. I try to keep him talking, but he's barely responsive, stuck inside his own bubble. Right on the second night (still not having slept a single minute), after tackling the tough climb to Col de l'Ouillon (2,650 m), we find ourselves swallowed by fog so thick we struggle to keep each other in sight, snow keeps falling, indifferent to our struggles, quickly burying the footprints of whoever passed before us. We're alone in territory we don't know, and, for the first time since we started, we genuinely lose our bearings. We're convinced we should push in what seems like the most sensible direction, but every time we head that way, my GPS devices start beeping, warning us we're off course. Exhaustion, which in moments like this steals your clarity, makes it hard to understand how that's possible. The direction the GPS is pointing, in the fog-laden night, looks impassable, like the ground just drops into a cliff. I'm fairly panicked, we keep going in circles, and Roby loses a glove liner without ever finding it again. Our own footprints in the snow keep crossing each other, making it impossible to tell which alternatives we've already tried. Finally, after some indefinite stretch of time, one that feels endless, the beams of other teams' headlamps appear from behind the pass. We share our failed attempts with them. It seems just as strange to them, and together we try every possible alternative. We're all in the same boat, and that alone brings me some comfort, in a flash of clarity I re-evaluate the terrain, and conclude that the seemingly impassable route is actually the only way out of here. I strap my crampons back on and descend using kick-steps, and luckily, before long, I spot slide marks in the snow, someone must have come through here before us. I'm on the track! I shout to Roby, and the others follow behind. The slope isn't even as steep as it looked from above. It always plays out this way when our minds get locked onto something, the alternative always seems insurmountable, when, in reality, it's much simpler than we think. This happened to us several times during the 2018 PTL too.

We've lost more than two hours. All I want is to get out of that hell as fast as possible, so I run flat out down the descent, keeping an eye on Roby, who doesn't seem all that lucid, and we push on without letting go of the track, even when it keeps crossing back and forth over a frozen stream.

We reach the valley floor, where, because of the bad weather, we're forced onto the emergency track, meant to bypass equipped sections that have become impassable. Sounds like good news, except that the off-trail climb to Col de la Forclaz turns out to be no small task. We spot the headlamps of a team high up on the mountain in the distance, but genuinely struggle to reach where they'd been. Once past the pass, all I can think about is the Hospice life base, and finally, the moment I'll be able to take off the soaked shoes I've been wearing for over 48 hours. Convinced the Hospice is down below, I follow the trail signage, and, in what feels like an instant, we find ourselves off track, with other competitors' lights a few hundred meters above us. It's always demoralizing watching everyone else running one way while you're heading the other. I apologize to Roby, who just shakes his head, but we have no other choice but to climb straight back up to the trail everyone else is on, meanwhile watching them disappear into the fog. The track we need to follow takes a path that doesn't feel intuitive to me at all, but we've agreed to follow it, so we do. The trail's turned into a mud slide, hard to stay upright even with poles, but finally, at 7 am on the second morning, we reach the life base. Davide, who surely hasn't slept either, is there to greet us. As always, I plug in my watch, phone, GPS and power bank, this step is critically important, and always requires a bit of remaining clarity to get right. We take off our shoes and, to our surprise, find our feet aren't in nearly as bad shape as feared, just soaked, but with fresh socks and insoles they should hold up. We eat the usual menu, in its most stripped-down version. By now we've realized resupplies are handled by the organization, not by the refuge owners, whereas in 2018 you could also order from the huts' own hiker menu on top of what was provided. But, as always, with no other option, we adapt, we didn't come all this way to eat, after all. We decide to sleep for an hour and a half. Apparently I'm not tired enough, because between people snoring and others coughing from the cold, I can't fall asleep.

Sleep's always been my biggest problem, ever since I was a kid, but this time, with unusual calm, I don't let it bother me. I'm genuinely doing fine, and I'll deal with it later.

Before setting off, I notice a girl tending to competitors' battered feet, and decide to take the chance to ask for her opinion on mine. She tells me they're "nickel", French for "all good." She wipes a bit of alcohol on the sole to help it dry faster, and while doing so notices a small blister I hadn't even spotted, between my two smallest toes, and asks if I want her to treat it. Might as well, seems like a good opportunity. She draws out the fluid with a syringe, refills it with disinfectant serum, then tapes up my toe.

I go to collect my charging devices, and notice the power bank's been unplugged, and there's no sign of our second charger. We've got another one, but if we hadn't, our race would have ended right then and there. Merci to whoever took it.

I put my shoes back on and we set off again, the morning's cool, the sky's clearing, and the rain's finally stopped. Our spirits lift, and we chat as we take in the course, which, at last, we can actually enjoy. It almost feels like we're only now setting off from Chamonix's chaos, as if the first two days had been spent suspended in some white limbo, and only now do we realize where we actually are: surrounded by beautiful mountains.

The race's spirit is taking hold of us now, and there's no stopping anymore. Our brains, used to a sedentary, city-bound lifestyle, took two full days to reprogram themselves, but now we're in full Trail Running mode. All that matters is pushing forward, immersed in nature. Before long, we reach the stunning Rifugio del Ruitor, whose valley is a true gem. Finally, we get to eat a proper meal. The race has settled into its own rhythm, only four teams are at the refuge, we trade a few jokes with the volunteers (thank you for existing!), and the atmosphere feels just like I remember it from 2018. As always, we promise ourselves we'll come back one day, at a slower pace, and sit there swapping stories like two old-timers at a bar, but we both know full well we never will, at least not until we can no longer do these things ourselves. We take a well-deserved detour to the memorial marker where Jean-Claude Marmier, the founder of the very first PTL back in 2008, tragically passed away. Undeniably, a beautiful place to go.

The scenery is breathtaking, having barely left the valley floor, itself already worth the effort just to reach, before long, we're alone amid the mountains. It's that hour that "softens even a sailor's heart," just before sunset, as we crest Col du Tachuy, and the sight of the lakes is something extraordinary, we count 6, 7 of them, each one more beautiful than the last.

Faced with nature's grandeur, our exhaustion, our fatigue, our aches all fade away, and we feel exactly where we're meant to be in this world. I keep taking photos, wanting to burn this moment into my memory, after all, this is exactly why we're out here.

We descend, then climb back up toward Rifugio Deffeyes, the refuge sits just a few hundred meters away, a sign points to it clearly, but our track heads exactly the opposite way, toward a waterfall we're supposed to climb. We don't dare imagine how many teams have cut the corner and taken the easier route instead.

Without needing to borrow Walt Whitman's words, we head straight for the more treacherous trail. Before tackling the climb, we sit down and dig into the best of our provisions. We wolf down a can of Simmenthal corned beef, a bar, and some dried fruit, then get moving again toward the waterfall. From a distance, it's not obvious how you're even supposed to get through there, but as we get closer, a few climbing moves later, we manage to find a way up. The roar of the waterfall is deafening, we can't communicate by voice at all, not that we need to, in situations like these a few simple gestures are enough to understand each other. Darkness settles in just as we take our first step onto the flat ground around the lake that feeds the waterfall.

It's the start of the third night, we're at the halfway point (km 158).

Our target is reaching the Morgex life base, at the refuge we eat the same thing as always, quickly, by now, even the act of eating has lost its appeal, become just a necessary step for continuing on. The route, the moving forward, the pushing on, have taken over as the priority above everything else, even eating and sleeping. Without quite realizing it, we head deeper into the night, toward Passo Alto (2,860 m).

Finally, the moon keeps us company, and the darkness feels less dark. The descent toward Morgex feels endless, full of little detours searching for trails, and it really puts us to the test.

We're in Italy, and the aid station has lasagna! We chat a bit with the volunteers, take a proper shower, and decide to sleep for two hours on some fantastic mats laid out in the gym. Normally I'm the one fighting to convince Roberto to sleep more, but this time I'm genuinely feeling great, and don't really feel the need myself. One of my feet aches a bit, but I put off dealing with it until it becomes something more urgent. I know Roby, on the other hand, is in real pain, so I can't afford to have my own problem too. He's tried every possible lacing pattern to avoid inflammation on the top of his foot, and now he's got some nasty blisters. At dawn on day four, we set off again, a hot day's shaping up, and we start paying much closer attention to water resupply.

We keep climbing at a good pace, in fact, we're doing better uphill than downhill. In the woods above Morgex, we get lost, all three of my GPS devices are giving conflicting readings, and after more than half an hour on a steep slope, surrounded by fallen trees and thorny bushes, we decide to abandon the track and navigate by the sun and mountains instead. To our great relief, since it's never a good feeling to sense you're off route, after a while we intersect what looks like a well-worn trail, and follow it, the direction seems right, and we start closing back in on the track we're supposed to follow, until it insistently pulls us right back off-trail, climbing again.

After a good stretch of scrambling straight up the steepest line, we reach Tête des Fours, at 2,830 m. While eating something, we take in the valleys spread out below us, aside from a single mountain hut, there's no sign of human settlement anywhere, a real feast for my eyes.

It's immediately clear that the only way forward is following the ridgeline, hoping there'll eventually be some way down toward Saint-Rhémy-en-Bosses.

Just before an equipped section, we run into a guy who's set up camp on a tiny ledge, greeting us with a smile and offering us an herbal liqueur. I swear I'm not making this up, some guy, all alone, decided to hike all the way up there just to offer us wretched souls a sip of his favorite liqueur before sending us into an exposed, gear-protected section. If there's ever a moment for "keep trail running weird," this is it. We hug our new hero like old friends and push on. On an empty stomach, the green liquid does its job, and even Roby cracks a smile again for a bit. The section isn't particularly hard, we'd braced ourselves for something tougher, considering what we'd faced during the 2018 PTL edition, and given we're still lugging around helmet and lanyard.

The descent toward Saint-Rhémy is very steep, and the heat starts making itself felt, alongside the foot pain. In the village, the aid station's set up by the organization, inside the very same tent that, in a few days, will welcome Tor des Géants competitors. I've lost track of what time it even is by now, day and night are chasing each other around in my head with no clear order left, but I'm convinced this isn't the moment to linger too long. I want to check my foot and get moving again. I take off my shoe and sock, and freeze for a second when I see my little toe, purple and swollen up like my big toe. The toe looks like it's suffocating, squeezed by the tape they'd wrapped around the blister earlier, I rip it off, and all that swelling bursts out right in my hands. The relief is instant, I try to clean and disinfect it as best I can, then I'm ready to go again. Roberto's sitting motionless at the aid station table, I hope he's eaten, since I've noticed he tends not to eat much, and doesn't dare check his own feet. Oddly, my stomach, which always gives me trouble, feels great, I'm hungry, and at this pace, I manage to eat enough without ever hitting a crisis. When I call out to Roby, he stands up like an automaton and starts walking again.

On the climb, we run a quick check, and other than one foot each, we're doing reasonably well. Shortly after, we run into Emanuele and Marco's team, who we'll share the rest of the journey with, and, as if we'd been friends forever, which, in a way, we practically are, having covered so many kilometers together on the same trail by now, we start chatting animatedly about life, the universe, everything, and how Trail Running's evolved in recent years. Their energy is contagious, and even Roby snaps out of his silence, starting to tell stories from all his mountain adventures.

After an off-trail stretch, we find ourselves in a stunning valley, one we'd never have seen if the race's track hadn't led us right through it.

Four sheepdogs guarding their flock force us into a small detour, and we reach Col du Grand-Saint-Bernard, already dark by the time it starts raining again. By now, we don't even need to think about what to do, automatically, based on the temperature, we layer up with whatever's needed (spoiler: the [Lava Jacket](https://www.wildtee.it/it/23-giacche-a-vento-uomo) has been the single most-used piece of gear). We're perfectly attuned to adapting to the weather by now, but even so, it's right as the fourth night begins that our expanded team hits its biggest crisis. We're "stripped bare," face to face with our own struggles.

Past the pass, we have to follow a half-collapsed trail that, in our minds, should lead downhill toward Rifugio du Plan du Jeu.

Often, after too much effort, you instinctively convince yourself the route must be all downhill from here, and when it turns out it isn't, things tend to fall apart fast. I'm probably in the best shape out of the four of us, I convince the others to keep moving slowly ahead while I stop to check the roadbook and confirm our position on the GPS. Sure enough, we still have to climb up to Pas du Chevreau. The trail's now slick from the rain, and unstable from the many landslides that have hit it over the past few days. I catch up with the others, who've stopped, Roby's doubled over, the foot pain must be tearing him apart, but it looks like he's struggling far more than his usual self.

I decide to play my wildcard and offer him one of my pieces of dried meat, telling him it works miracles. He seems to trust me, which tells me he must genuinely be running on empty.

Shamelessly lying, I announce we've got only a little more climbing left, then it's all downhill to the refuge. Marco and Emanuele seem a bit low on energy too. After a short break, we set off again, slowly making our way toward the pass. Driven by the thought of a hot meal, we try to descend as fast as we can. From above, we spot some lights, and, shamelessly lying yet again, I let everyone believe that must be the refuge. Having a visible target sometimes helps push through a momentary rough patch. As expected, the moment everyone realizes those lights are just the entrance to the Grand-Saint-Bernard tunnel, I get my fair share of insults. What's worse, the tunnel lights switch off when no cars are passing, then flick back on whenever a car approaches. You can imagine what that's like, chasing a mirage that keeps appearing and disappearing: a nasty trip for the fourth night. Strange as it sounds, we have to climb over the tunnel entrance and head toward some abandoned buildings, but still no sign of the refuge anywhere. As close as it's supposed to be, not being able to see it is genuinely frustrating, and the team's morale hits rock bottom. We climb back up a mule track that, in these conditions, feels endless, until we finally catch the smell of burning wood, and shortly after, we finally spot it. Once again, we'd figured on arriving by midnight, but it's already two in the morning. We eat the usual menu, this time featuring the standard soup (cold), stew with a bit of French-style pasta on the side, at least the apple pie is good. We pack our bags for the next leg and allow ourselves three hours of sleep, we're pretty worn down, and it's better to rest. Waking up at 5:30 is one of those alarms your body just can't quite process. We ask for something for breakfast and are told there's nothing available. We console ourselves by digging into the usual "rich" menu, ordering three plates of stew with cold pasta. We try to convince our bodies that's breakfast by sprinkling some sugar on top, then set off again. This restart is one of the hard ones, we try to soften it by chatting about trail running.

Someone points out I'm hunched forward pretty heavily on the climb, and, sure enough, I'm struggling, feeling soreness in my lower back, when I notice my poles are set to 115 cm instead of the 120 cm they should be. Must have gotten swapped somewhere at one of the refuges.

We need to stay sharp, because, due to a landslide that came down during the storm on the first two days, we've been asked (in a message that looks Google-Translated from French, badly) to run part of the track in reverse in order to reach Cabane du Velan. Instead of 7 kilometers, we now have to cover 19. Used to blindly following the GPS's directions, we're not sharp enough for this counterintuitive detour, and sure enough, like four rookie hikers, we miss the turn and end up covering an extra couple of kilometers, lost in conversation. It's actually a beautiful day, and since we'd already decided to stop for the night at Orsières instead of pushing straight through to Chamonix, and the planned distance for the day isn't huge anyway, it's a decent excuse to add a few extra kilometers. We spot our mistake and try cutting through the woods to avoid backtracking all the way to the junction.

To reach the Cabane, we have to tackle an equipped section, ladders, via ferrata, and honestly, we can't wait to get to it. The technical bits break up the monotony of the walk and add some spark to the route. We come out of the via ferrata to a spectacular view over the valley and its glacier, now slowly melting away.

At the Cabane, which turns out to be less a cabin and more a large, elliptical, aluminum-shingled high-altitude refuge, we eat some excellent polenta instead of pasta, a nice change from the standard menu. We treat ourselves to a few minutes of rest alongside hikers arriving at the refuge for the night, then set off again. The day is gorgeous, we're feeling great, and we take in the scenery with real calm. Before the descent toward Orsières, we take a good break just to soak up the sunset light. By now we're living in complete symbiosis with nature. The finish is getting closer and closer, and it almost feels like none of us actually wants this journey to end.

Maybe it's the drop in tension, but my toe starts hurting badly, the sock's soaked through with blood, and I don't dare look at it. Managing pain is always a strange thing. The biggest pain tends to drown out all the others, taking over completely, but I barely even notice it as long as I'm focused and locked onto the goal. Ever since I started thinking about it, though, the toe's been hurting a lot, I think the skin's come off completely, and the raw flesh sends a jolt straight to my brain with every step.

The descent toward the village turns into an ordeal for all of us, each nursing our own ailments, doing everything possible to avoid putting weight on the sore spot. At least this time we arrive at a reasonable hour, eat, and immediately go to sleep for our usual three hours.

I've always struggled to fall asleep, to switch off the thoughts constantly spinning in my head. To my immense joy, at this point, on the fifth night, with 6-7 hours of accumulated sleep, I drop off the instant I lie down. I'd wanted to reach this point, and I fall into a deep, restorative sleep.

We've still got two days left to finish the course, but we decide to try reaching the finish by Saturday, so we can actually enjoy Sunday off before heading back to work Monday.

At 2:30, we're up and ready to go. It's our final dawn, and we want to savor it from the top of a mountain. After all, that's exactly why we're out here, to fill our eyes with nature's spectacle.

We climb in the dark with our headlamps, taking turns glancing back toward where the sun will rise, ready to stop the moment it's right.

The climb is genuinely demanding, but even so, we're still handling it well. By the time the sun peeks out from behind the mountains, we're already sitting there, watching.

The climb to Fenêtre d'Arpette, tough as it is, rewards us with spectacular views, exhaustion mixing with the thrill of having just finished the last demanding ascent.

This year's course was definitely less technical, due to the tough weather in the early days, but it did give us a close-up look at every glacier around Mont Blanc. What struck us most was seeing just how massive the waterfalls gushing out from beneath the ice actually are. It's as if every glacier were weeping copious tears out of its own wounds.

The loop around Col de Balme, even though it feels like it drags on forever, is a pure formality before the final refuge.

We take our time eating, savoring this final meal, and joke about the (enormous) backpacks of the hikers riding up on the chairlift. With the contents of those packs, we could probably disappear for a few months and walk all the way to Slovenia along the Alpine arc.

We see the whole Chamonix valley spread out below us, we're close now, this adventure too is coming to an end. All four of us are trying to process everything we've lived through over these six days.

I'm not sure if it's each of us dealing with our own pain, or none of us wanting the journey to end, but we move painfully slowly.

I'd like to run, just to put an end to the throbbing in my toe, I try, and realize I could actually manage it, but then I stop to chat with a friendly Swiss man who seems genuinely curious about what we're doing, asking me all sorts of details about the route. Unlike in Italy, where trail runners are often seen as a bit odd, and, more often than not, get in the way rather than the reverse, blocking the trail entirely, in other countries everyone steps aside, cheers us on, asks about the course.

Paved roads, cars, buildings and people are slowly pulling us back toward everyday life. We reach Chamonix right in the middle of UTMB's finishers streaming in. At first, the crowd overwhelms us, then, once they spot us, and, from our state, realize we're PTL competitors, a roar rises up as we pass through. This is the sixth time I've walked these streets leading to Place Triangle de l'Amitié, I try to hide the tears behind a smile, but once again, I can't hold them back, when a group of friends, waiting for us there, comes running to meet us.

Once again, the magic worked, and we managed to close the loop. Returning to "civilized" life after a week immersed in nature is always a bit of a shock.

For the numbers-lovers among you:
We covered 353.63 km and climbed over 22,799 m of elevation gain. (Strava)

Oh, almost forgot! The ranking disappears the day after the race, leaving behind only a bell and a pile of indelible memories.