The storied PdG race is a monumental, yet, doable race. If you’ve dreamed of competing with like minded skiers, moving through a mega landscape with the Swiss Army at your back can be a reality. This is part I of a three part series on the PdG. Get your race bib on, registration is now open, but closes soon (9/30).
Big glaciated terrain along the PdG course. Race registration opens September, 30. Photo: Aerialfootage_Swisscom (68)
“I see a stick or a pole or something,” I yell back to my colleague, the lead guide of our group. As tail guide, I’m on the rope out front, casting my cordelette into the whiteout, trying to discern the fall line and crevasses of the Stockji Glacier as we navigate our group down to the finish of the über classic Haute Route in Zermatt.
“Go to it!” he responds, and as I near the tree limb stuck upright in the snow, another vaguely appears, maybe 25m further on. After a third, we realize we’ve found our way onto the course of the ski race from Zermatt to Verbier we’d heard about. (In the preceding days, we’d seen helicopters, heard explosives, and been told by other guides that the Swiss army was preparing the course.) A few more markers down the now more visible glacier, and we are in an empty quonset hut-like tent structure—what will become a race checkpoint—getting our guests re-energized for the final push to Zermatt.
Amidst all the following days’ Rösti and beer to celebrate a successful tour, I kept thinking, “Whoa, they race across that terrain?” That was 2002. Twenty years later, I was on the starting line in Zermatt for the 2022 Patrouille des Glaciers or “PdG” as a member of Team Tahoe Skimo.
As a testament to how awesome I found the PdG, and to motivate you to do it, this is the first of a three-part series of articles. What follows is an overview of the race. Part 2 will cover registration, logistics, gear, etc. And in Part 3, I’ll share Team Tahoe Skimo’s experience.
Registration for the 2024 PdG closes this coming September 30. So assemble your team and sign up.
The Swiss Army is an integral part of the race’s history and current day operations. Photo: Samuel Ebneter
History and Culture
The PdG began in 1943 as a training exercise for the Swiss military. The modern race, which includes civilian and military divisions and is still organized and run by the Swiss Army, started in 1984 and is held in late April of every other year, with the next edition in 2024—in other words, next spring. It’s a huge event. Around 1,500 teams of three take part. There are so many teams that the field is divided in two, with half of the teams racing earlier in the week and the others later.
The PdG is one of the six European skimo races comprising La Grand Course. These are all team races that are either long with a ton of vert or multi-day stage races. The PdG and the other Grand Courses epitomize Euro skimo culture: cool, hard, historic courses; big fields of teams of a wide range of abilities and ages, from the best of the International Ski Mountaineering Federation (ISMF) World Cup to older citizen racers (like me) who have been ticking grand courses for years (unlike me); and crowds of supportive spectators in the start and finish towns and along the course.
For North Americans, the cultural experience alone is worth racing for. Imagine a pre-race stroll on the main street of your mountain town without your usual self-consciousness when wearing spandex and carrying little skinny skis. This is Zermatt in the days leading up to the PdG—more skimo racers than not.
Click the play button above to view a fly through of the full length PdG course.
The Course
The first thing to know about the PdG is the amazing course. Yes, you’re kind of racing the Haute Route in reverse. The race route follows or parallels much of that most classic of classic tours. It traverses around 56km (~35 miles) of glaciers and gains about 4300m (~14,000ft) of elevation, crossing high cols from Zermatt to Verbier. Suck it up ‘Mericans; those are the last metric conversions I’m doing for you. There is a shorter course option traveling from Arolla —the halfway point of the full course—to Verbier.
The race includes significant portions of technical terrain requiring roped glacier travel, roped down skiing, and sometimes, depending on conditions, using an ice axe. It also starts and finishes on foot over cobblestone streets with many cheering spectators. This ain’t no on-piste race at your local ski area.
Climbing, lots of it.
There are five significant climbs. The first and longest goes to the course high point of the Tête Blanche at 3,650m and gains 2,045 vertical meters from the start in Zermatt. For perspective, that is nearly half the vert of the entire course. So, you start the PdG by almost climbing the Grand Teton or Mt. Shasta. The race starts at night, so you navigate this in the dark. You’ll rope up at the Schönbiel checkpoint on the Zmutt Glacier and remain roped over the Tête Blanche, where you’ll experience the joy of roped down skiing, likely in the dark. Two of the remaining four climbs are short—the bump to the Col de Bertol after the initial descent off the Tête Blanche and the race’s final climb to the Col de la Chaux.
The first of the two other long climbs is the Col de Riedmatten, which gains 928m from the first of only two official aid stations at the race’s halfway point in Arolla. The second is the Rosablanche, which gains 734m from the second aid station at La Barma, which sits at the end of a long, false flat traverse above the west shore of Lac des Dix. Each climb typically includes some bootpacking and sometimes a whole lot. And sometimes, you downclimb the initial part of the following descent. Plan to encounter some technical skinning as well.
This is what you came for. The climbing is icing on the cake. Credit: Berthoud Photo
Your ascents are often with skis slung on the pack. Photo: Manz Dimitri
Skiing of Every Kind
All that climbing comes with even more descending. The course has a slight net loss of elevation. Expect every imaginable type of terrain and snow, and expect to use every technique in your toolbox to ski it. There is some piste, but overall, very little. Thankfully, it’s almost all at the end, on the final descent into Verbier when your blown legs will be grateful.
Setting the little bit of groomed snow aside, be ready to descend some technical terrain demonstrating a risk tolerance that would void the race organizer’s insurance policy in the States. One of many examples we encountered was a nighttime descent so boney that the amount of sparks off my teammate’s skis hitting rocks almost obviate the need for a headlamp.
An ethereal headlamp train on route. Photo: Sdt. Julien Franzin Swiss Army.
Checkpoints and aid stations
There are several checkpoints on the course at which all team members of each team (Patrol in PdG parlance) must pass through a chip scanning together. The timing data goes live to a PdG app on which anyone can follow a team’s progress on the course. Some checkpoints are elaborate mountain camps installed for the race by the military – roped off areas with shelters, generators, high powered lighting, and lots of staff to direct you. The PdG is said to be the Swiss military’s largest operation of the year, and it shows. There are time cuts for reaching some of the checkpoints. Two of the checkpoints (yes, only two) are also aid stations with some food and fluids (more on this in Part 2).
You Should Do It
The PdG is an unforgettable experience. If you are or want to be a skimo racer and experience what is arguably the paradigm of the sport, race the PdG. You won’t be disappointed.
Given my enthusiastic blathering about the race’s history, culture, and course, it’s no surprise that I found it fantastic. It gave me everything I was hoping for and then some. I know my teammates also had a positive experience. At least that’s my takeaway from a discussion the morning after we finished: “Hey, we should do the Mezzalama.” (The Trofeo Mezzalama is an Italian grand course race that is held every other year in the PdG’s off years.)
Just do it. Don’t miss the September 30 registration deadline. More teams register than get to start (entry is by lottery). You get your money back if you don’t get in and most of it back if you cancel by next February (more on this in Part 2). If you’re thinking about it and want to chat, I’m happy to. Just know that I’ll try to talk you into it.
