The end of our two week alpine adventure coincided with the UK bank holiday Monday, and as luck would have it some of our friends had booked a long weekend in Chamonix.
When we eventually got some fine weather we seized the opportunity to complete one of the routes I'd fancied the idea of for a long while, the Papillons Ridge.
We had planned to leave Ailfroide and head over to Courmayeur (to climb the North Face of Tour Ronde) and then on to Cervinia (to climb the Italian - Lion - ridge of the Matterhorn). However, these were thwarted by (yes, you guessed it) the wet weather.
Finally we did get some dry weather. Ailefroide is a bona-fide alpine destination, with stuff like the Meije traverse (next year?) and the Dauphine classic South Pillar of the Barre des Ecrins. But it also offers some amazing rock climbing less than the 15 minutes from the camp site.
Of course the dry weather didn't stick around. It never seems to stay that dry in the Alps, in fact I've decided that the Alps are actually a lot wetter than the Lakes! True or not, this August has been particularly wet...
After leaving Spain (see AFF here) we headed to the Alps for our summer holiday proper (I consider myself a climber first and foremost, even to the extent that when someone - anyone - asks me what I do, I answer "climb", not "work in IT").
Long rock climbs, sport rock, and alpine adventures with a better chance of good weather than the Mont-Blanc area. Fave route – Orage d Etoiles. Ailefroide Rock.
Ice-fall climbing from l’Argentiere-la-Bessee in the Massif Ecrin. Ace, but not (in our experience) a very reliable winter venue. Fave route – Ancrage de Dent (WI5), CC Winter Ice Meet 2002. We didn’t find very good conditions. Although I know others have in other years, and it may also be the case that we went …
