Blog Posts in Category: France

With yet another weather window of only one day we decided to head up the Aiguille du Midi cable car and climb the classic Rébuffat Route on the south face of the Aiguille du Midi. It was very bizarre being in Chamonix in the morning and an hour later rock climbing at 3800m. The descent down the arete out of the Midi was spectacular with a massive cloud inversion, with only some of the larger peaks sticking out of the cloud, during the approach to the midi and on the descent it became clear that there had been a large amount of snow in the previous days storm, this combined with the very cold air temperatures made us wonder if the route would be climbable. As we approached the climb there were two parties in front of us, but it turned out that they were backing off due to ice. We decided that it didn’t look that bad and decided to continue and have a look for ourselves, and I am so glad we did! We decided to climb the route with our boots and crampons at the bottom, with. Read the full article…

We made the decision to move back to Chamonix from Saas Fee due to a better forecast combined with there being more routes in condition that we wanted to do. The first weather window we had was meant to be an afternoon and a day before a storm came in, during this weather window we decided to head to the Tour Ronde to climb it’s classic north face. We made this decision largely due to there being a strong wind forecast, so we didn’t want to be up on any exposed ridges, and the Tour Ronde was sheltered by some of the larger mountains surrounding it. During Monday afternoon the weather did not clear as expected, which meant that we were not able to take the gondola to Italy from the Aiguille du Midi. Due to this we decided to spend the night in the Cosmiques refuge and walk across the Vallée Blanche in the morning to climb the Tour Ronde, before walking back to the Aiguille du Midi cable car station (at no point did we think about driving through the tunnel to Italy). After having to wait for. Read the full article…

After a number of days of unsettled weather we finally had a period of settled weather which allowed us to get up into the mountains and attempt a route. Our objective was the classic AD Arête du Flèche Rousse on the Aiguille d’Argentière, although its condition was unknown as it hadn’t been climbed in a few weeks and since then there has been a lot of snowfall and the nights haven’t been that cold. We set off from the cable car station to start the walk in from the hut in very Scottish weather which included hill fog and rain. After a relatively painless walk in we arrived at the hut with lots of wet kit and were very pleased to be greeted by a happy guardian and news of a proper drying room! We set off early the next morning to a crystal clear sky, although unfortunately despite this it was not a cold night and the snow had not refrozen overnight. We made good time to the start of the route despite having to break trail, however after this the snow slowed us down significantly. The initial snow. Read the full article…

After a long day yesterday and two sleepless nights the thought of an early start in order to catch the first lift of the day wasn’t all that appealing. However, due to only having a brief weather window in the morning before a few stormy days we decided to get up early and head up the Petite Verte. We chose this route due to it being a short day (under 300m ascent!) which would enable us to get high and continue acclimatising before the weather came in. When we arrived at the lift station it became clear that a large number of other people had (unsurprisingly) had the same idea. The weather in the morning was fantastic and upon leaving the lift station we were greeted by fantastic views of the Aiguille d’Argentiere on one side and views towards Mont Blanc on the other side. Thankfully we managed to leave the lift station quickly and were in the initial group of teams heading for the ridge, due to the air temperature being cool the snow was frozen and we were able to make quick progress up to the start of. Read the full article…

After driving through the night to get to Chamonix, we arrived early in the morning to be greeted by heavy rain. Due to the forecast saying that the weather would improve as the evening approached, we headed off on our pre planned acclimatisation route. Our plan was to head up the valley from Le Buet to a few hundred meters above the Refuge de la Pierre a Berard where we were going to wild camp before heading up to Le Buet the following day before descending via Le Cheval Blanc and the Col de la Terrasse. The weather had started to look bright so we headed up the valley, but unfortunately the rain hadn’t finished and we got hit by another heavy shower on the way up. Eventually we reached an excellent bivi spot with flat ground, plenty of access to water and a stunning view. It started raining very heavily just before we headed to bed, and I learnt the hard way that getting into a bivi bag in the rain without getting everything wet is a tad awkward, but I was very pleased to end up in a. Read the full article…