Verdon (Part II)

So with the success of having climbed La Demande, we were more disposed to enjoying Verdon.

Since then, we've done a couple more single pitch routes – one that wasn't in our guidebook, but had everything to recommend it: great rock in a fantastic location. Beautifully shaped holds, delicate but physical moves, curving up for more than 40metres from an exposed belay above one of the favourite haunts of the vultures.

And we've also jumped on “A Tout Coeur”, with 7 short pitches up from the Jardin des Ecureuils. The first pitch was a polished sandbag, and whilst not the hardest pitch – it felt like the crux! But the remaining 6 were just lovely, finishing the route on Passion d'amour: delicate face climbing, requiring constant attention to feet and body positions.

We've continued to free-camp at the top of the cliff, driving into the extremely quiet hamlet of La Palud or the larger (but still quiet) town of Castellane for supplies, laundry and (only once!) a free hot shower, courtesy of a local climber. Our hands have toughened up once again, and we're taking every opportunity we can to enjoy the sun for the brief time it is out. The vultures and the steep drop to the river never cease to amaze, and the good weather continues.

This place is growing on us, it seems.

La Demande – The Question

"THE major classic, it should be on the itinerary of any serious climber who visits the Verdon.”

Twelve pitches. 320 metres. Right from the bottom to the top of the gorge.

This route is a mega-classic in the genuine sense of the word: it was the first route climbed on this side of the gorge, by Joel Coqueugniot and Francois Guillot in 1968. This was back before rappel-bolting, with the ascents done from the ground up, before modern climbing gear, ropes and shoes. The route may have gained some fixed protection in recent years, but its history was intimidating – not to mention its length and popularity. Despite its moderate grade, to climb La Demande would call for a strenuous effort.

We set off as the sun started to hit the rock, and headed down the four rappels to the Jardin des Ecureuils. A short scramble lead us to three more rappels, and we were in the scrub at the bottom of the gorge. Bashing through this, following whichever pig-path seemed the widest, we arrived at the rather uninspiring base of our route.

From the bottom, looking up - not so inspiring from this angle, admittedly!

We'd been advised not to judge the route from the first three pitches; as more parties start out on these than finish the route in its entirety, they are more polished. They're also not what the route is famous for! Linking a couple of these pitches together, we were soon happy to be half-way up the cliff – 6 pitches and about 160 metres of climbing done.

Up ... 

... and more up!

But we were not at all half-way through the climb in terms of effort required! A fun, but delicate and strenuous, pitch followed, as the route lead us into the wide fissure that forms the top of the route. One more easier section, and we were at the two crux pitches: the so-called “fearsome upper chimneys”.

The view from inside the chimney.

As a rule, climbers these days don't climb chimneys. The rock is generally softer; that's why there's a massive split in the cliff in the first place. They collect water, moss, vulture droppings and other mess from above, and no-one likes to get wet and grubby. Even with all the fancy modern climbing gear, they can be hard to protect too – although old-school climbers will no doubt tell you that once you're jammed into a chimney, you can't fall out… so why would you need protection anyway? Aside from for your mental health, that is?

"Star" bridging by Mark.

So, whilst this chimney was mostly dry and solid, the motions used to climb a chimney feel strange and strenuous to us: bridging the distance with feet and hands on either side, using the friction of feet on one side and bum on the other to shuffle your way up, and generally thrutching, puffing, panting and praying until something like a hand- or foot-hold appears. It's also not very dignified. In parts, the right-hand wall has been polished to a light shine by the passage of so many backs and bottoms: it's comforting to know that you are not the first person to use more body parts than hands and feet on this part of the route.

"Bum and feet" bridging by Jen

Thankfully too, a few extra bolts have been placed on these two pitches – certainly not nearly enough to aid from one to the next, or to prevent the leader from feeling like he's going to slam into the belayer if he pops off, but reassuring nonetheless.

And with part of your body on the the left, and part on the right, the climber looks straight down the middle to the river in the gorge, far, far below. Even though we were in a chimney, it feels fantastically exposed!

With sighs of relief, we reached the penultimate belay – the sun was dipping lower and the temperature was already dropping. The days are short in November! The last pitch was a bit of a tired ramble, but we were then at the top – just as the sun lit up the neighbouring cliffs before disappearing for the day. 

Verdon

At last, the forecast was for something other than rain. It was time to leave our campsite haven, with its superb internet, and head to a crag.

Taking a chance that it would be warm and dry enough, we headed towards Verdon Gorge – a place Mark has been itching to get to for quite some time. Verdon is a deep limestone gorge, famous for long routes approached from above – rappel in, and climb out. (And if you can't climb out? Well... you're stuck half-way up a massive cliff, aren't you?!)

The first day there was spent either watching the rain come down or, in the breaks in the weather, checking out the soaked slabs and the intimidating drop to the roaring river a long way below. Jen was sceptical that any climbing would be done.

Oh ye of little faith! The next morning dawned clear and sunny with a light breeze - and whilst still cool with some seeping patches on the rock, the slabs were dry. It was finally time to climb.

First impressions? Let's be honest. Jen didn't like it at all, and Mark was less impressed than he'd hoped too. We chose to climb single pitch routes – a single rappel down to an anchor, before climbing out. If it wasn't for the position on the gorge walls, high above the river below with the vultures circling around, they surely wouldn't get as many stars as they do – some loose rock, some polish and only a few funky moves. And quite frankly, you get that view from the balcony above with the rest of the tourists.

The day was redeemed by two routes – Wide Is Love, with its precarious hanging belay and disappearing foot-holds, and Biscuit Margarine, that once again started out in a tenuous position and climbed up to safety.

Perhaps we had just picked the wrong lines.

So the next day we tried something harder – a 2-star, 5 pitch, 6a+ charmingly called Les deux doigts dans le nez. And it was a lot harder, and more effort for us than the grade would normally suggest and still a contrived line, weaving left and right to pick out the most solid rock in a wall of choss – great scenery not withstanding. Two fingers in the nose indeed.

Rapping into the fog

Jen, feeling overwhelmed, picked the next day's outing, choosing Cocoluche – disparaged by our guidebook as being one of the most popular multi-pitch outings for no good reason. We actually really enjoyed it - although it was the weekend, it wasn't at all busy, and the optional harder penultimate pitch provided a welcome challenge.

Next, we headed to a different part of the gorge to the Arete du Belvedere – and despite it's three stars, we were in for another disappointing route. With inconsistent grading, it rambled up the arete to a scrubby finish: have a few of the top pitches crumbled away?

But in good news – every day brought clear blue skies, and in the sun at least, it was warm. The days are getting shorter, and the nights are crisp and cold, but with the sun on your back and reflecting off the cliffs, it was easy to forget that it's late November. We've seen a few other teams of climbers, but most of the time it feels as if we have the place to ourselves. In the scrub, we've heard wild piggies and seen deer and a fox; and of course, overhead, the vultures keep playing in the thermal updraughts. Oh, and there was the mouse too … but more of that later!

With continuing good weather, and many more routes to chose from, there was no question of us moving on just yet …   

Jen and Mark go to Green Castle

Chateauvert sounded like exactly what we needed: lots of routes in our grade range, a short walk from the car, in a pretty little valley.

So we stocked up on some food and prepared to move in - and discovered that there isn't anything, really, to dislike about Chateauvert!

Camping (or "parking up") isn't really allowed in the valley itself (despite the handy public toilets and rubbish bins at the climbers' carparks), and we thought that it would be best to humour the locals by ensuring we stayed on a quieter road or at the basic but cheap municipal campsite in the nearby town. Others just stayed in the climbers' carparks, and as it's fairly quiet at the moment, there's really no harm in doing so.

There's a local bakery in Corens is open all hours of the day, and stocks delicious breads and brioches, and is staffed by a lady so friendly that she insisted Jen wear a plastic bag on her head (!!!) as it happened to be lightly raining. Whether it was due to the bag or not, thankfully Jen was not noticably negatively affected by a bit of water. And for all other essentials, it was a 20minute drive to Brignoles nearby.

And the climbing? The routes are long single pitches, on vertical or overhanging limestone, overlooking a quiet river and local road, and surrounded by forest. Some of the popular ones show a little polish from wear - indeed, when the weekend and the school holidays hit, we saw how busy it can get - but for the most part, the routes listed with three stars in our guide were routes well worth climbing.

All in all, a great little spot. And if it wasn't for this rain, we'd still be at the crag ...

The Vultures Are Circling

... but this is not, at all, a bad thing.

We've been happily parked up near the entrance to "La Maison des Vautours" for the last ... well, at least the last week but probably longer. Days are flying by, spent climbing in the sun on the walls of the Gorges du Tarn (harder, single-pitch) and Gorges de la Jonte (3-4 pitch climbing at usually consistent grades).

In the Jonte, the re-introduced vultures love to glide by the cliffs, rising on the thermals - from our position on the wall, we can see their immense size and grace as they appear right near us, turning their heads to check us out (still living? eh, not interested).

Climbing highlights? It's hard to go past L'arete Oest (the West Arete), Les femmes et les grimpeurs d'abord and Le Reverent in the Jonte ... although there have been many others, that in less auspicious company, would be considered classics. And Gorges du Tarn has so many fantastic single pitch routes to push ourselves on (most of them are super hard!), I don't know where to start.

In the evenings we've been hanging out with Sam and Al, and their two dogs Rosie and Jem - British climbers who like us are loving the van life and who are great company.

All up, life continues as normal - fantastic.

Les femmes et les grimpeurs d'abord ... or, women and climbers first!

Jen leading and Mark on belay on the third and final pitch of "Les femmes et les grimpeurs d'abord" in the Cirque des Vases, Gorges de la Jonte - 5c, 5b, 5c+. Absolutely brilliant climbing, in a stunning setting with great weather. Photo by Al.

Climbing with the Opti Kids

So five of our old mates from Amsterdam (mostly from Mark's old work) drove down to Basel for some outdoor climbing. Hot and humid, with a late Saturday night thunderstorm, it was the warmest weather they've had all summer - perhaps that's the penalty for staying in paid employment in Amsterdam! For some, this was the first time climbing outside of a gym, others did their first lead climb and everyone seemed to enjoy the weekend ...

Mont Blanc (or, Monte Bianco)

We decided that to cap off our stay in Chamonix, we should probably climb the tallest mountain around … we'd met plenty of tourists who had come to the area for that purpose only, ignoring all the other lovely peaks and interesting routes to focus solely on getting to the top of Blanc. Whilst we didn't envy them their short stay in one of the most beautiful parts of the world, we knew that friends and family might not understand that we had climbed things that, for us, were more fun, more challenging and with just as stunning views from the top and yet had missed the one that everyone comes here to climb. So, to Mont Blanc we were to go!

But the truth of the matter was: we just didn't want to join the crowds in a long, slow tramp, taking the easiest line, for the sole purpose of being able to say we'd reached the summit – and yet, on a tall peak like this, we also didn't want to bite off more than we can chew and not make the summit at all.

So – which of the many routes to the top were we to take? The routes on the Italian side appealed most of all, particularly as such a route would involve a traverse across the massive, from one side to the other. A quick phone call to the Gonella Hut confirmed our fears that the easiest route to do this was no longer possible, as crevasses had cut open the glacier, but it would be possible to take a different glacier or a rock ridge … perhaps a slightly harder undertaking, but not too hard, and that suited us perfectly.

And so the preparations began. We had felt pretty acclimatised to altitude, but had spent a few days now in the valley. Packing a picnic lunch and the Kindle to read (a much loved new toy), we used our penultimate lift pass to head up to the Aiguille du Midi for six and a half hours of hanging out, to check we hadn't lost our ability to survive on thin air. Then, shouldering our rather light bags, we walked up to the entrance to the Mont Blanc tunnel in the hope of hitching a ride …

It should be said here that yes, there is a bus – and no, the bus is not expensive or inconvenient. But hitching (around the Chamonix valley, at least) is fast, efficient and certainly cost effective – so we didn't think that hitching through the Mont Blanc tunnel would be any different. After 30 minutes of waiting by the road, we felt less optimistic … and we had to persevere for another 30 minutes before a kind Swiss lady took pity on us and gave us a ride. In fairness to our original optimism, she was shocked it had taken an hour to get a lift. Maybe it was just us?

Arriving in Courmayeur late in the evening, we set about finding some pizza for dinner and wondering why they put a dinosaur in their centre square. Not seeing much that inspired us to stick around (ie not finding a hotel within our budget), at 8:50pm we jumped on the last bus to Val Veni with thoughts of finding somewhere to bivouac on the route to the Gonella Hut. A short way up the approach road, we found a flat, soft-ish spot under a large pine tree, laid down the rope, put all our clothes on and got into our bivvy bags … and shortly afterwards, surprised at being warm and comfortable without sleeping bags or tent, we were both asleep.

(Around the middle of the night, the temperature dropped dramatically and there was a severe freeze up on the peaks – it was the first truly cold night in a month. We didn't get much sleep after that. Then, the hotels in Courmayeur started to look like excellent value.)

Rising early and not in the most positive of moods, we got moving in order to warm up. Within a short while, the sun had risen enough to hit the path, making our excess clothes redundant, and our breakfast of a can of coke and cold pizza (delicious!) went down very well.

Taking it slowly, across the moraine and up the hill and with a generous stop for lunch, we had hiked up 1300m or so and were at the brand new Gonella Hut within 6 hours. First priority was a decent afternoon snooze, getting up again in time for dinner – we had decided to splurge on hut accommodation AND food, just this once, and with great pleasure sat down to a four-course meal … an amuse of proscuitto on home-made bread, pear and gorgonzola risotto, cured beef and fresh vegetables and fruit for dessert. Yum. A quick chat to the helpful warden about the route, and it was time for bed again …

Awake and smiling at 1am.

But the thing is, hitting the sack at 9 and rising at midnight meant another night of short sleep! Gulping down the coffee and biscuits, we didn't know if we were eager to climb this mountain or more inspired to go back to that warm bunk, but we knew that once we were on our way it wouldn't feel so bad. Or rather, we hoped it wouldn't!


The amended route to the summit from the Gonella Hut was described to us like this:

“Leave the hut, and follow the old path to the glacier for only a hundred metres or so, until you see a patch of snow. Then cut directly left and up onto the ridge itself, and follow the ridge up until it becomes flat. There, look left again and you will see an entrance onto the glacier. Traverse down and across the glacier until you reach the middle – but this traverse will be on sloping ice, mixed with dirt and stones, that is as hard as concrete, and is the most dangerous part of the climb. Then head up, moving right when you see the small col between the rock ridges. From there, it's up the rock and you're on the ridge – follow this up, over Gouter, and you're on your way to the top.”

Too easy, eh? Well, keep in mind it was before 1am when we set off and there was no moon that night – just the stars and our headtorches to show the way – but Mark's route finding ability and this description proved to be enough to set us (mostly, we think) on the right course. The difficulties we had were inherent in the path itself, not finding it!

First of all, cutting directly left and up onto the ridge itself involved moving over steep and loose terrain – small stones rolled beneath our feet and convenient hand-holds proved to have no foundation. It was slow and careful to progress, particularly as we were not the only party on the route but were the first – right behind us, there were seven more Alpinists, and none of them wanted to get hit by a falling rock any more than we wanted to drop one.

However, we found the entrance onto the glacier easily and started the traverse – and sure enough, found the hard ice and dirt mix too. This was like walking on sloping, slippery concrete and our crampons barely seemed to make any impression at all: the hut warden was certainly right when he said it was the most dangerous part of the climb! The crowd (for all 9 of us were all moving at a very similar speed) dropped vertically down at this stage about 100m and eager to avoid this horrible surface, we followed suit – and this is where, perhaps, we dropped too far and left the hut warden's path.

At first, this way seemed easier to gain the middle of the glacier – we dropped down and around to the right of a small-ish crevasse, then followed it across. But to start climbing up again, we needed to weave our way through a series of large icefalls … these are spectacular to see, from a distance, as the ice creates dramatic blocks, curves and deep abysses. Trying to climb through them is a matter of trial and error, as feasible options end in impassable cliffs or drops; as it's also the most active part of the glacier, it's not really the safest place to hang out for too long. Thankfully for us, two keen Spanish climbers had overtaken us on the down-climb and had picked a good route through the ice-fall – it was much faster for us to be able to follow them and avoid the dead-ends.

Sunrise and a mouthful of chocolate!

It was quite a relief to see the smooth glacier rising ahead of us. Picking up the pace, we started to quickly gain more altitude with our sights on the col, just visible in the starlight on the horizon. We did have to pass a few more crevasses, working around them to the left, but the way was now much easier.



We got to the col at very first suggestion of the sun rising, and realised that climbing from the Italian side had protected us from a strong and cold wind. Time for something to eat, and for some more clothes to be put on! Barely 15 minutes later, as we approached the ridge itself, we had to stop again to put more clothes on … it was cold!

Looking back to Bionassy.

The ridge was only footprints wide, but as the sky turned pink and stars were replaced with sunlight, we could see Mont Blanc ahead of us and the peaks and cliffs of the massive, plus the villages and green hills in the valleys spread out below. It was simply stunning.

And now it was just a matter of putting one foot in front of the other, and plodding up ...

... up ...

... and even more up! Over Gouter and up the Bosses ridge, and up some more.

A well-deserved can of Pepsi.

We'd covered about half the vertical distance by the time we'd reached the ridge, and all of the more difficult terrain, but there was still another 800m or so of vertical ascent to go. We rested briefly out of the wind at the emergency shelter, but by keeping a steady pace we were on the summit within 10 hours of leaving the hut.





Being later than the usual crowd from the easier French routes, we also had the place to ourselves …

Cheese!

They say that the summit is only the first half of the journey, but thankfully I'm more than half way through this blog post!

We had chosen to go down via the Aiguilles du Midi chair, following the well-marked path through the snow around Mont Maudit and Mont Tacul. Despite a few dramas at the double abseil point (we managed to reach it at peak hour), and also with altitude and tiredness slowing us down, we made it back up the steep slope to the Midi in more than enough time for the last chair back down to Chamonix … where Fred, a hot shower and a good night's sleep were waiting.

Frendo Spur

The Frendo Spur

Mark had wanted to do this route since hearing about it before our trip last year … and with it in good condition, there were no more excuses to stay away!

We headed up the Aiguille du Midi cable car to the midway point the afternoon beforehand, and set up an outdoor bivvy on top of the moraine wall. After a few games of cards, and well before sunset, we called it a night and tried to get some sleep – we would need all the rest we could get the next day! True to form, Jen managed to drop off fairly quickly.

The alarm went off the next day at 1:30am. Ouch. We had a pain au chocolat, stowed our sleeping bags and mats under a rock and hit the path. Despite the (almost) full moon, we were glad to have sussed out the moraine route the day before and we were quickly on the ice ramp leading to the start of the route.

Once up the ice ramp, the crampons came off and the scrambling began. Route finding in the dark isn't exactly easy, but all in all, we were pretty happy with the path we took and never really strayed from what the description said we'd find.

Approaching a steeper section, we switched to rock boots – whilst this meant we had to carry our heavy boots, it made us more confident on the rock so we could move a bit faster. We were constantly concerned about our speed – above the rock, the icy ramp would soon be getting the morning sun …

Just after dawn, five hours of climbing done - happy faces all round?

This is a bit more like it!

We topped out of the rock about 10:30am – we'd already been on the move for 8 ½ hours! - and after a brief break to change back to the heavy boots and put on the crampons, it was time to take our steps onto the snow ridge.

Although it looks flat from here, it's really not flat.

This is a better picture of what it's like!

 

We were glad to have two snow stakes to protect the narrow ridge, but still moved slowly and cautiously – this is not the place to slip. And when the ridge steepened into an icy wall, Mark got some ice-screws in too: this was more familiar and comfortable ground! It's been a while since winter, so the arms and calves complained a little, but the motions of ice-climbing have not been forgotten.

Stuck behind two friendly (but slooooow) British guys, we pitched out the top - moving to the left of the last rocky rognon up steep but stepped-out ice, which was conveniently close enough to the rock to allow Mark to put in some rock pro too. Jen finally cheered up a little, having spent most of the morning grumpy and terrified … it had been a long morning of climbing, and a bit of lose rock at the start plus the break in her beauty sleep had done nothing for her mood.

Nevertheless, we eventually topped out over the ridge … and see? Jen is even smiling. (Pure relief?)

And thankfully, the descent did not involve 16+ abseils (we should tell you about Dent du Requin one day!) but rather two cable cars, packed with tourists, and a great view back over our route. We stopped at the half-way point for a drink and to collect the bivvy gear, and congratulated ourselves on a great (if long) day out. 

Five nights at Refuge du Requin

_{We have already mentioned that we found the Refuge du Requin very comfortable and welcoming … we had intended to stay for only three or four nights, and carried in only that amount of food. But in the little kitchen provided for those too cheap to buy meals, the left-over food box contained enough pasta, dehydrated potato, powdered milk and stock cubes to stretch our provisions to five nights – well, with a few supplements from the friendly hut wardens too.} 

_{So what did we do there? On the first day, feeling like something “straight-forward”, we headed towards Congo Star. Michel Piola, the author of our guidebook and climber responsible for setting up many new routes in the area, states explicitly that “Nuts and friends not needed” for this route. He describes with some angst the re-equipping of the route by a previous Requin hut warden against the wishes of the original ascentionists, who presumably wanted to keep the line as predominately trad.}

_{However as we started to climb, we realised that Mr Piola obviously hasn't climbed the route since its infamous re-equipping. Yes there are a few bolts around – but we were very glad on the first few pitches to have a few camalots and nuts with us: if you were only to rely on the bolts, it would be horrendously and dangerously run-out! As it was not turning out to be as straight-forward as we'd hoped, and finding the third pitch still wet from the previous days' of rain, we decided to pull the pin and rappel off.}

_{The next day, we headed up towards the beautifully named “L'Eden de la Mer” (The Eden of the Sea). Thanks to the retreating glacier, it took us a while to find the start … an extra pitch of easy climbing has been added onto the bottom of the route, where once you should have been able to walk up the ice – sadly, not that uncommon these days! But we soon knew where we were heading and were enjoying some fabulous granite in the sun.}

_{We didn't follow the route exactly, however. There are some bolts on it, and the rest uses natural protection, but in many instances it seemed to us that the bolts took the climber a few metres out onto harder, smooth slabs and away from the easier and interesting cracks which for the most part took good gear – so we opted for the easier line and didn't always clip the shiny hangers. Again, Mr Piola's guidebook lead us astray – he clearly shows the line of the climb going to the left of a large buttress (the buttress being one of the few features he has drawn on his topo), and we foolishly followed this rather than the bolt we saw on the right … this lead us into easy but broken ground, with enough rock spikes to create belays, but we doubt this was the direction of the original route.}

_{At any rate, we shouldn't complain too much about the route, as the view from the top of the balanced boulder was quite lovely.} 

The Dent du Geant

 

_{And what next? The Dent du Requin – the Tooth of the Shark – loomed above the hut … taking a rest day to sort gear, eat and chill out, we sussed out the possible routes. According to the hut warden, the best route by far was Voie Renaudie: first climbed on 4th August 1946 by Mr and Mrs Jean Renaudie, it has 570m of rock climbing but involves 900m of vertical ascent from the hut. An early start would be essential.}

_{So, the alarm went off horridly early. With a group of Germans aiming to climb the nearby Chapeau a Cornes, we breakfasted, grabbed our gear and set off across the moraine. Hitting the ice, we popped our crampons on to head up what is described as a 35degree slope – the ice got steeper and steeper as we climbed towards the rock, and by the top we were joking that this was certainly an inaccurate geometry calculation! We may also have headed up the initial rock step the bonus-points way … (and still in crampons … urgh!)}

_{So, all told, it took us a little longer than expected to hit the official starting ledge, marked with a large white arrow pointing the way.}

_{Then the sun rose, turning the sky pink, then purple, then blue …}

_{Ditching the crampons and ice-axes, we set off – moving together over easy terrain, with Mark placing a few bits of pro between us. We quickly covered the first couple of hundred metres this way, and after being so slow on the approach, we were happy to finally be making good time. The description of the route matched what we were seeing (funnily enough, it wasn't written by Michel Piola), and we reached Step 7: The Cliff Becomes Vertical. Changing into rock shoes, we started to pitch out the climb – and pitch after pitch of great granite climbing followed. Nothing too hard, but consistent, we climbed towards the summit ridge.}

_{Hitting the ridge, we admired the steeper drop down on the other side and scrambling up and over the loose boulders, and through a small letter-box opening, we reached the step just below the block of the true summit around 2pm.}

_{All that was left to do was abseil down … following Mr Piola's instructions, we found the abseil point and (foolishly!) did the long 50m rappel – despite the intermediate rappel points we could have used. Of course, the rope then got stuck and Mark had to climb all the way back up the rope to clear the jam – a simple sentence to describe two hours of hauling, pulling, flicking and pleading with the rope, not to mention the effort required to prussik up 50m of very stretchy, thin climbing rope. Oh, and then the fog suddenly came in – with snow, then sleet and rain to follow. We had enough gear to keep warm, but ropes are far heavier when wet than dry and even once we'd cleared the initial jam we had at least 16 more rappels to go. It wasn't until we were half way down that we found the promised abseil bolts, as we had been using instead an older, more slabby abseil line with slings around rocks – these were mostly OK, but some we backed-up with our own tat, and the terrain made us quite concerned we'd catch the rope again (which, thankfully, we didn't). All up, it was heavy and hard work, and we slowed down. We were back at the ice-axes and crampons far later than we'd hoped, and were even slower heading back to the hut.}

_{Once finally at the hut, we were greeted with a warm welcome and the fire going … needless to say we slept well that night!}

Looking back - the hut on the left and the tooth on the right

Ah the Serenity

Cosmiques Arete

A few days lounging the valley resting and waiting for good weather, lead us to do something we had been avoiding - Comiques Arete. A short ridge leading to the Aiguille du Midi, it is extremely popular and we knew there would be crowds... but we wanted to do something relatively high to try and help keep our acclimatisation and the forecast didn't look encouraging enough to head in somewhere for few days. And we had to use our lift passes sometime.

So off we went, in time for the first cable car (6:30)... but not early enough – we only got on the second... not a good start. Chatting to those around us, many seemed to have just day packs... and yes, many of them were headed to Cosmiques.

A short walk from the Midi lead us to the start, and for most of the route, a pleasant mixed rcok and snow ridge, we weren't too pressed... but nearing the end we took the interesting way, instead of the simple route and the bonus abseil that entailed slowed us down, as more and more people flocked up the ridge.

Looking back at the hordes scrabling down ... and this was just the start of the onslaught!

Climbing the final slab and chimney system, parties began climbing over and around each other, with many people closing in on the shaking, cramponed feet of a tired second on one of the slower teams in front of them... and the traffic jam further down the ridge looked even worse. The crampon indentations in the rock tell you that this situation is nothing new and many, many cramponed feet have preceded you. (Or is it just that someone has drilled some conveniently spaced footholds in the more delicate sections?)

Jen was photographed next to a small girl having "gained the summit!"

Mark negotiating the treacherous final stretch, with yet another impatient climber behind him.

Up the ladder (!) back into the mid-station and it's all over. Not even half a day's worth of climbing, so we wandered off and lay around, eating in the sun with Jen chatting on the phone to Australia, increasing the time we spent up there.

Every summit needs a rocketship, right?

As we left in the early afternoon we looked back down the ridge and saw it was much quieter. So our advice if you want to do Cosmiques Arete is either to start from the first cable car and get in front of the crowds or wait a few hours and let the traffic jam subside – there's no descent that would be risky late in the day.

Aiguille d'Argentiere ,,, via Fleche Rousse

Skiing anyone? Found this on the walk in to the hut ...

Dehyd for dinner ...

Camp!

An early-ish start (before 4am - sigh!) from our bivvy on the snow saw us trudging uphill again, headed for a ridge on the east of Aiguille d'Argentiere. We slotted in behind a couple of guided groups, also headed for the same ridge, but who had already been going for 45 minutes having started from the hut. We felt a bit smug, having been able to sleep in 45 minutes later as our bivvy was 200-300m higher than the hut.

Dawn - and we're already a long way up (but with a lot further to go!)

As the light started to grow we approached the crest of the Fleche Rousse ridge, pressing on the heels of the group in front of us... only to get a short sharp lesson, as a flailing foot sent a shower of small rocks down onto us. With no damage done and our lesson learnt, we gave them some more space. Starting the on the mixed ground that continued most of the way up to Fleche Rousse, we reached the ridge just before sunrise and we were greeted by great views out towards Switzerland.

From here the route threaded along the ridge, often just off the crest, turning rocky gendarmes on either side as we moved together along rock ledges, snowy couloirs and everything in between. Even early in the morning we could feel the effect of the sun on the east and south facing slopes and were glad of the early(ish) start and that the descent was on the NW side.

A short rock pitch, that felt much tougher than anything in our topo had us to expect, lead us to the top of Fleche Rousse. It also lead us to wonder if we should have followed the group in front of us so exactly and also to curse climbing in crampons and not rock shoes... we think we missed the easy way up! Or are we just soft?

Just before the first summit of the day ... looking back down the ridge and at a very tired Jen!

Feeling the sun (but not feeling that we were climbing fast) we pressed on past the first summit of the day without stopping, abseiling down to the summit ridge of Aiguille d'Argentiere – the end of the mixed ground and now just simple snow plodding to the top. After a quick snack on the summit, we headed down the steep Mileu glacier, ending up frontpointing and daggering our way down for longer than we expected.

The summit shot!

Once down off the glacier, lunch in the sun called and then a stroll over the moraine back to the hut, returning some dropped gear to one of the parties who had been in front of us. Then we turned our back on the people lounging in the sun, with their beers, playing chess or cards at the tables... and faced uphill towards our tent, for that extra 200-300 vertical metres that we'd felt so smug about at 4am...

And down again ...