Italy, mostly…

On September 22, 2014 by Tim Neill

Great views from Tour Ronde of the best ridge in the Alps…Peuterey Integral

For my last few weeks of August I was guiding for Alpine Guides ( http://www.alpine-guides.com/mountaineering/index.htm ) and climbing with Tim for 5 days then Phil for just 3. The conditions were still snowy and fairly mixed weather so we did our best to sycnh in with it.

Tim and I started our trip with an traverse of the ever popular Aiguille d’Entreves and the little north face of the Toule then a night at the Torino hut.

A little snowy on the Entreves

Next day we set out by head lamp to climb the Rebuffat Couloir on the Tour Ronde. This excellent icy gully is on the steepest and most shaded part of the north side and gave a load of excellent and varied pitches (with bolt belays) with some fairly steep climbing. We arrived at the the summit (having collected our Batoux points..) in snowy and cloudy weather, soaked it up and trundled back to the hut and home to Chamonix…Tim rightly chuffed with his first proper multi pitch climb!

Tim climbing up to a cool ice cave somewhere in the Rebuffat couloir

The following day was awful on the French side of the range and on driving back through the tunnel to Italy…the same. The rivers washed out the bridges in Val Veny closing access to the Monzino hut for the season. It was tolerable further down the valley and we built on our multi pitch experience by climbing the classic Bucche d’Arancia (9 pitches up to 5c+) at the big walls of Machaby follwed by a lovely walk back through the woods and past the monastery.

Our last 2 days and Tim chose the mighty Kuffner ridge (aka Frontier ridge) on Mt Maudit. We walked over from col Midi to the Torino again and then breakfasted at 2 am. Conditions were amazing up onto the ridge and sunrise caught us up somewhere high on the really narrow corniced crests high up that the route is famous for. Some really delicate sections up and down meant for some concentrated action for both of us and finally we crested the mountain and a view back down to the Chamonix valley. This was a superb effort from Tim due to the length, altitude and commitment required (there was no helpful track in the snow) and we were a bit tired heading back through a deserted, windy and bleak col Maudit and finally a tiresome (not to mention bullet hard and icy) descent of the Tacul back to the Midi lift. An excellent effort from Tim and well beyond any of his previous horizons!

We said cheerio and then hi to Phil. Our goal of a Matterhorn summit was re calibrated and with the brief of some good climbing and some summits, maybe a 4000m one. Strong northerly winds blew me back up the Tour Ronde…this time via the classic Gervasutti Couloir which is often impossible to access after early summer due to a usual gargantuan rimaye…no probs this season. This gully has got great atmoshere, really deep and a constant angle.

In the Gervasutti..

The wild cold wind was ripping over the summit and we got a little shelter in its lee before the now familiar descent. After a sociable evening back at the hut we left early for the Dent du Geant, making rapid progress with the excellent conditions on the approach. The cold wind had luckily dropped as we grabbed the big ropes and swung our way to the Madonna and a very peaceful summit.

Ahhh…the sun…

Phil enjoying the panorama..

Next day we concluded our short trip by climbing the famous Rebuffat route up the south face of the Aig du Midi. Mega classic granite climbing and nice and quite all the way to the summit piton.