After the mega rain yesterday and last night, there was no hope of a big day today. So after breakfast in bed we headed up to the Index for a half day with moderate altitude to get a little acclimatised just in case the weather gets better later in the week.
The journey up from La Flegere was questionable. It was still very cloudy after the rain and as this next picture shows, the prospect of getting above the cloud didn’t improve as we gained height!
Our objective was the classic route, L’Index. An easy route, but as we’d started so late waiting for the clouds to clear a bit and the rock to dry we had little time left before the last lift back down at 4.30 pm.
Luckily the weather did improve a fair bit, as the next picture shows. Although there was a fair amount of cloud whooshing around us the sun did show his face. 😀
The combination of the clouds and sunshine gave us an amazing Brocken Spectre at the top of the route! I just hope the picture shows up well on the web?
A short day and an easy climb, but never-the-less loads of fun!
As we sat eating our lunch we noticed hundreds of cars parked near the Chamonix heliport in Les Bois. We decided to investigate…
There was massive cross-country mountain biking race going on. We weren’t too sure but it seemed fairly serious stuff with massive tents for all the big name mountain bike brands and their professional rider teams. Plus there was an area set aside for some awesome stunt riding. The guy in this picture has just jumped, from an almost standing start, up 2m onto the log!!!
After all that, it was time for today’s cake… :yum:
Nice to see other people besides Clive Westlake can get Brocken Spectre pictures 🙂
Doesn’t look like that stunt bike has a saddle. Could be a good thing that 😯
Again, top health cake
Ticking all the right boxes on the 5 a day …………… fruit in and on the cake!! :love:
I do the same stunt as the mountain biker… but off the log 😯 😯
Nice pic of Tish on the Index.
Oh… with all the cloud and poor viz, was this not a good chance to get lost Pete?? 😆
Falling backwards off a log easy 😉 Nice to see some improving weather we got rained out on Sunday in the dollies – I expect dave will beat me for the proper post on our adventures.
Well, at least the bad weather would keep the crowds away from the Index 😉 When I did it last week, following up behind Smiler and Kathie (new Kat member from Canada), there were crowds and progress was very slow 😡 Fortunately, Smiler just walked over them all, so I was able to too :star:
Keith and Fiona did a different route but got stuck behind the hoards on rappel 😥
Incidentally, I well remember the bit Tish is on from my first ascent in 1987, when me and my then pal were hopelessly hung over. At the top of that bit, my pal stuck his head over and vomited back down on the French following behind 😈 No wonder there were big fights in the Bar Nat in those days 😯
L’Index was my first ever Alpine rock climb.
I don’t think I have done that cake though.