Early Summer Alpine
Dropping out of the burl towards the Charpoua Hut…
I arrived back in the Alps early June for a couple of weeks work with the Jonathan Conville Trust courses based in the Chamonix valley….a great start to the summer working with a varied bunch of fellow Guides and a rapid turnover of students on the busy little 3 day courses…also a great way to get some mountain legs back and re enforce the lung capacity for being up high…
This was followed by an action packed week of climbing with regular alpine and winter partner Matt…
We kicked off on the first day by walking up from Montenvers and climbing the lower buttress of the Brown/Patey route on the Aig Sans Nom to a bivi below the median ice field. Then in the morning racing the weather up the Marsigny/Mohr couloir to the Breche Sans Nom…the full Scottish weather dictated a rapid and challenging descent to the Charpoua glacier…Home for tea..
Next day we walked up to a cool bivi just beyond the Albert Premier hut after the weather had died down…a starlit night heralded the start of a big high pressure system…we set off early to the Aig Chardonnet and started with a fairly modern route just right of the North Couloir, but some steep loose blocks made us pull right into the Gabarou ’79 route via the crux pitch of the Escarra line…so a cool long and interesting mixed line straight to the summit and a great birthday summit for me…
Stellar birthday treat from Chardonnet summit breakfast …
The final hit was to be the Diable Ridge on Mt Blanc du Tacul…a classic of both the Rebuffat and Batoux 100 classic volumes….
We caught the last lift up to the Midi and took a space in the modest Abri Perroux, just below the Cosmiques hut…
Early on between Pte Chaubert and the cool Median….
Alarms rang at midnight and shortly after we set off on a long walk round to Cirque Maudit (still familiar from the winter visits with Nick…but sadly without skis)…we climbed easily up to the col and some easy mixed scrambling took us to the first of the Diable pinnacles….dawn arrived on top of Pte Chaubert and the next 2 pinnacles were good fun climbing as the sun warmed the rock…we skipped the Pte Isolee due to a fair bit of time consuming ice as well as being route climbers rather than summit baggers … weak I know…and sped onwards to the summit of the Tacul by 10 30 am and so Chamonix by early afternoon…glad to not be toiling down in the increasing heat…
Standard shady big boot climbing up high…
As alpine ridges in the classic style go this is right up there in terms of quality, commitment, variety and just the right length so as not to go on too long…
Classic alpinism…Matt near the end of the Diable Ridge….
Next day I was back in Wales for a short home visit before the next big alpine stint…
