Tuesday, August 29, 2006

Challenging conditions


The weather has not been good this August. Despite this Charles Sherwood and I managed to climb continuously for ten days. We started rock climbing in the Aiguille Rouge. It soon became clear that the weather in Chamonix was going to get really bad but good further East so we headed to Saas Grund. From the Hohass Hut we traversed the Weissmies [4023] and stayed at the Almageller Hut. The next day we traversed the Pizzo d'Andolla via the Portjengrat a route that is justifiably described in the guide as one of the finest in the alps.
Next day we managed to fit in a traverse of the Dri Hornli [3209m] before another big storm hit.
The storm put down a lot of fresh snow so we rock climbed below the snow line while we waited for conditions to settle down. Eventually we spotted a short weather window and headed up to the Albert 1er ready to make an attempt on the little known Gabarrou Couloir on the Grand Fourche [3619m]
This proved to be a big day out as the conditions underfoot and overhead made the climbing challenging. Having left the hut at 4.00am we were greeted 12 hours later at the door by Claude Charlet the guardian with steaming bowls of Tea and cake.

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