Papillon Ridge

After a short walk from the mid-station of the Midi lift we began the route. An absolutely stunning rock route in a fantastic situation. Bits of everything involved, from slab to overhang, from pinch to jam. Really enjoyed the climbing and let Sam led the lot (I could tell he was really enjoying it!) After a quick abseil back to the floor it was time to head back to Chamonix and round off the time in the Alps with the gratuitous consumption of strong French lager!

Mont Blanc 4810

‘It’s always nice to relax after a route and prepeare yourself mentally while snuggled in your tent in the early evening. Train of thought gone: what was that crack, thud! And why is everyone looking our way. Let’s just ignore it, probably stonefall. Got to get up in a few hours anyway.’

And so we did. After a leisurely evening and half decent nights sleep we dragged ourselves out of the tent at 2am to begin the trudge up Mont Blanc. We new that it was just going to be an inane slog all the way, but I kind of like that sort of thing. There’s something about just switching off all unnecessary parts of the brain and just getting on with it.

The crux section on Mont Maudit was longer and more technical than expected, but after a lengthy wait in the long queue and with cold feet, we got on with it and carried on towards the summit of Mont Blanc. Although we were clearly moving slow because of the altitude, we were certainly making good progress. We summited in about 5 1/2 hrs if I remember correctly. A personal best for Sam and a satisfying time for me. On top we bumped into Tom and Jason, our friends from the campsite, purely out of chance.

And so began the descent. A fairly swift one which saw us back at the tent in good time. It also revealed the crevasse that had opened up between the fly sheet and inner! So that’s what the noise was yesterday! It looked as though our tent was holding the glacier together! Anyway, time to head back down to civilization and get a beer.

Cosmiques Arete

Blisters all healed (bad pun!) it was time to make up for lost time and do some of the classic routes I had come to shamelessly bag. We headed up on the cable car at about 9am to the Midi Station and then descended to the base of the Cosmiques Arete, dropping our caamping gear off at the Col du Midi. What we hadn’t considered is that it was Bastille Day. Route mobbed! Really enjoyed the easy climbing and especially topping out up the ladder on to the viewing platfor of the Midi Station! Good recce for a return this winter I feel.

Forbes Arete, Aiguille du Chardonnet

At the beginning of July I drove to the French Alps (based ourselves in Chamonix) with my friend Sam. Our first route was the Forbes Arete on the Aiguille du Chardonnet. Bivvied out on the Tour Glacier after a straight forward walk in and proceeded to consume our some what limited sources of nourishment (we were going lightweight). As we know, it’s always a struggle to drag yourself out of a sleeping bag at 3am, so that’s why we left it for another hour! Dawn was just breaking at this point and the stunning line we were about to follow to the summit was becoming clear. As it was our first route of the trip, and hence unaccilmatised, the going was pretty slow. We made it up the steep snow bosse to the ridge and began the route proper.

We were following an absolutely stunning line which more than made up for the fact were moving quite slow. Although you have to remember we had all our bivvy gear on our backs too! Eventually we reached the summit without too much incident. There might have been the odd nervous jitter due to the lack of snow and ice, but all was good.

It certainly wasn’t over here the decent required a few lengthy abseils, and being stuck behind a group of French guys didn’t speed things up. Eventually wew made it back to the glacier, and with very little time to make it back to get the cable car down. We took the decision to cross the glacier directly but this resulted in me falling up to my armpits into a crevasse. Not wise to carry on, so we retraced our footsteps and finally made it back accross the glacier. Too late to catch the cable car though so a lengthy walk back to the car was required.  Great day out though!