Knackered

My past few days have been jam packed with stuff but zero running.
On Tuesday myself and Laurent went up to the Aiguille Rouge to do a rock route on the Grande Floria , upon arriving at the bottom of the climb and as I was unpacking the kit and sorting the ropes Laurent let a very strong French verbal assault and then it clicked. He had forgotten his rock climbing shoes , now Laurent is an idiot and he knows it but to all he needed to remember was his Rock Shoes , Harness and Helmet and I had the rest. We were left with one option and as Laurent had never climbed the Index we headed over there. It was a fun morning and Laurent done a good job in his Adidas running shoes , it was super busy on top of the Index but we managed to get to the abseil point before anyone so made a swift descent.

Laurent on the Index

Me near the top

Sleeping with his Axe , Just in case.



At end of Cosmiques

We were down by early afternoon and so began my non stop days off. We got the lift up to the mid station at the midi to Bivi for the night and then we woke at 5am on Wednesday to get the first lift up to the top and managed to get in a quick early morning lap of the Cosmiques Arete with not another sole on it , very surprising given its the most popular route up there for holiday Alpinists. We were back down in Cham at 10.30am and then it was time to go and pack again as we were heading over to the town of Contamines that afternoon to walk up to the Conscrits Refuge and stay there that evening then traverse the Domes Du Miage the next day.

We were meant to be going in a group of 4 to do the Traverse but Laurent was complaining of a sore foot after Cosmiques and Jess pulled out as well but myself and Dorian decided to go anyway. We left Chamonix at 1pm on Wednesday and started the long walk up to the Conscrits hut at 2pm. Its a 1600m climb up to the hut from the car and starts in a forest , then onto Alpine Meadows , then a glacier , then some steep ladders then another trail to the hut. Its a fair old plod with great scenery and we managed it in a pretty decent time of 2hr 45mins , I think guidebook time is 5-6hrs. I must say I was pretty damn tired by the time we were at the hut as I was up at 5am that morning and had already lapped the Cosmiques so after some pasta I just went to bed and got the worst nights sleep yet. The refuge is great and beds were great but the noise was ridiculous in it with some Spanish dudes making noise for what seemed like hours. I reckon I got about 2 hours proper kip before getting up at 4am on Thursday morn.

Dorian on the way to the Conscrits

Conscrits Hut

Cracking Evening

Our plan was to do the Traverse of the Domes Du Miage. Its a classic Alpine ridge walk along a very narrow snowy crest with awesome views of Mont Blanc and the lower Alpine Peaks. Its graded at PD meaning its not very hard at all and has no real technical sections but it is exposed and narrow so one must be super comfortable with crampons. The normal route leaves the hut and you walk up the glacier for a couple hours before heading up to the Col Du Dome then join the ridge and traverse it back along the top and at the end make a descent straight back down to the hut. We had read in books and I had heard from friends that sometimes the start of the descent can be very icy and tricky to negotiate so we asked a guide at the refuge what conditions were like and he basically told us to do it in the opposite direction as we would be safer ascending the icy section early morning as it was currently rock solid black ice and full of loose rocks and was becoming very dangerous late in the day as the sun melts the ice and more rocks fall so doing the normal route was out the question as that means you would descend that slope late in the day.


The horrible Ascent , if you click on picture I have drawn a fine red line of our ascent route hugging the rocks on the right

Finally above that damn slope. On the top about to start traverse.

Starting the Traverse

End of Ridge


So we got up at 4am and made a quick brew and set off from the hut to the summit of the Aiguille de la Berangere , its pretty much a direct 725m ascent up rocks and a very small glacier. We made great time going up and as we reached the top the sun was just coming up and the sky was a wonderful sunrise red. We then got a glimpse of the famous icy slope that runs from the Col de la Berengere to the highest point of the day at 3670m. True enough the slope looked horrendous and as soon as I seen it I knew we had made the correct decision to do the route in reverse as coming down that slope would have been utterly horrible. So we got to the Col and stuck on crampons and got the rope out and up we went.

The Two main peaks of the Traverse behind.

It was not to bad at first with a few open crevasses to get over but the snow bridges were pretty bomber , then we hit the ice , we chose to stick by the rocks on the right as best we could as the centre of the slope was a no go area. It was not difficult climbing by any means but my god it was a touch scary as the black ice was covered with loose rubble and every single rock you held onto came straight off of the ridge and flew down the slope. There was not one spot we could belay from so we had to move together on this horrible slope and couldn’t even put an Ice Screw in as crampons barely work on black ice , I remember hearing Dorian shout up “Colin DO NOT fall as I have no belay at all here” not the best thing to hear when your crampons are barely in any ice and you have nothing for your hands. For about 15 mins it was pretty horrible stuff just hoping too many rocks didn’t come out of place and take us out but once past that 60m section we hit good snow and ploughed on up to the high point passing a surprising number of big crevasses that everyone we went over made a large thudding sound. Anyway once we got to the Pointe 3670m it was glorious , we had an amazing view of Blanc ahead and the sun was up and we walked along the splendid crest that in some places was pretty narrow but had great foot placements. Easily one of the finest ridges I have ever walked over here. We were over the main ridge in no time and it was just 8am so we sat down and took some photos and just enjoyed being up there in perfect weather. The descent was trouble free down from the Col Du Dome and back to the Refuge. There were people walking up to the Col as we were walking down and they left the hut the same time as us. We had completed the route and they were not even on it. I did think good luck to them as little did they know their descent was going to be interesting. We did stop and advise a few teams to not do the descent and just reverse the ridge. We were back at the refuge in no time so got the shorts and t shirts back on and fuelled up for the long descent. Again the descent from the refuge was trouble free and we were back at the car by 1pm. A pretty decent time of 8hrs from Hut , Traverse Route back to the Hut and descend to Car and that was with two 30 min stops , one at end of route and one at the Hut. It was a long day with 1100m of ascent and a whopping 2600m of descent but awesome training for my legs for the CCC.

Back down the ladders

Almost halfway down

I totally recommend this route to everyone as the situation on the ridge is amazing. It also proves though that even with a very low technical grade if a section is not in good condition then it can become quite tricky and it is a good idea to get as much up to date info as possible on the route. With a PD grade this kind of route appeals to beginners but there is no way a beginner group without a guide would have made it down that slope at the end and lived , no way at all. Even the guide that advised us to do it the opposite way said he will not be going back on it with any clients in that condition.

Arriving back home early afternoon I was knackered at not having had much sleep in the past couple days and be doing stuff non stop so it was nap time. Running will begin again tomorrow. The CCC is really not that far away.