We arrived in Chamonix on Friday evening and it was tipping it down! It didn’t look good for a dry-rock weekend…
…however, on Saturday morning we woke (not early!) to glorious wall-to-wall sunshine. A quick check on the snow level showed that climbing in the valley would be a good idea for today.
We decided to check out another new area for us from the Valleé de l’Arve guidebook.
Our original plan was to climb at Les Fiz which required some fun off-road driving to reach the car parking area (marked as suitable for 4×4 vehicles only). Half way along the track we decided the snow was getting a little too deep for our little Peugot! So we stopped, reversed to good track, and took in the fantastic views of Mont Blanc…
We went back down the track a short way towards Plaine Joux and stopped at Larses which is a small sport-crag two minutes from the car. Not surprisingly it was quite busy, but it was a beautiful sunny spot with some moderate slabby routes.
Sunday was a little cloudier so we decided to make one final use of our annual lift passes. The only lift running was Plan Praz, all the others, including Aiguille du Midi, are closed for maintenance before the ski season. We grabbed a lung full of fresh alpine air walking back to Chamonix from Plan Praz, with a short pic-nic on route.
Looks fun! Enjoy. Loads of good cragging north of Cluses as well.
If it’s France, shouldn’t that be ‘L’Arses’?