News

Title: Another succesful Mont Blanc assault!

Date: 02/09/2009

Just down this morning from another successful Mont Blanc assault!

After a great warm up and acclimatization period at the La Tour/Trient end of the valley we took on Mont Blanc by the three summits or Cosmiques route from the first lift up the midi on Tuesday morning.

After a week away in Scotland, I was surprised to see how much the snow has melted back off the glaciers whilst I've been away.

Up at La Tour the glacier there is drier than I've ever seen it, normally the upper half of the glacier is still covered in snow, in fact I've never seen it not covered so it was pretty amazing to see it predominantly dry (down to the ice layer) for the most part. The usual route up and through the col superior du tour, which access's the Trient Glacier is almost impassable now, the steep snow slope is now pretty much all ice.

We headed over to Trient via the peak of the Petite Fourche and the usual abseil down into Switzerland. The Trient Glacier was also amazingly low on snow and some of the biggest deepest crevasses where lurking under the weakest of snow bridges just waiting for the unaware.

Coming back over to France via the Aiguille du Tour we headed around and through the Col du Tour instead of the usual col superior du Tour. the col du Tour was the original route through but over recent years the receding Glacier made it almost impassable. At the moment however, this has once again become the way to go so as to avoid the icy slopes on the Col superior. The Col du Tour needs some careful route negotiation and some interesting rock scrambling to reach the glacier over the other side. It's amazing to think that not so long ago you could simply walk of the glacier onto the rocky col and similarly walk off the other side!

The Alps have suffered greatly this summer with the hot weather and unfortunately the affects are irreversible. Some of the routes that used to be classic snow and ice lines are simply becoming history before our very eyes!

Global warming has never been so evident over here with one extreme after another! Today we put on crampons to climb down from the Gouter refuge after a major snowstorm that raged through out the night covered the normally dry and rocky descent between the Gouter refuge and the Tete rousse.

After a perfect warm up part of the week the forecast for storms yesterday afternoon, gave us only one option to get to the summit, that being a quick push up and over from the first lift up the midi. We made the top in about 6 hours just as the weather was beginning to turn. I stood on the summit watching high speed wind clouds race over my head as the storm built up strength over on the South side. It was pretty atmospheric and, perhaps unsurprisingly, we had the mountain to our selves. All three of our guided teams made it over and down to the Gouter before the storm so a successful trip.

Both the Cosmiques and Gouter routes up Mont Blanc were in surprisingly good condition. I have another 6 day Mont Blanc course starting tomorrow evening, no rest for the wicked but I guess it keeps me fit and in terms of an office job its not so bad!

Plus Sir Chris Bonnington, Britain'smost famous mountaineer and who awarded me my medal of Bravery at the Kendal film festival, was on the hill with fellow Guide Dave Cumming, who some of you will have met on winter McNab courses. We were in the presence of Royalty and it was great to see him out on the mountain, a great ambassador for British mountaineering.

All is good out here, lots of interest in the winter courses, I hope we can fit you all in.

Neil.

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