It is exactly seven years to this very weekend that Terry, Pete and Tish stood under the Cascade du Dar in fresh falling snow. As you will see later, the Dar is to be avoided at all costs in avalanche conditions and so it was to be.
However, Terry had never given up on the idea and Bill O’Connor was skiing around the Col du Pillon barely a week ago and sent him this picture of the Dar in fat, pristine condition, with stable snow pack.
However, this is proving to be an illusive one for Terry and standing at the Col du Pillon on Friday, in high temperatures even at 1500m, the Dar looked bleached out and obviously unclimbable. Just look at the thin pencil in the middle? Pencils tend to snap!!
Out of interest, Terry returned next day to have another look. Just see the difference, with verglassing of the walls lateral to the pillar – not that this makes it any more climbable!
Then, out of further interest, Terry took the Glacier 3000 cable car up the mountain. This traversed the upper snow bowl above the Dar and what ugly territory it looks. The Dar ends at the obvious niche with rappels from rocks climbers left.
But with temperatures like this, what else can be expected?
