My alpine routes were kicked off in June of this year with an ascent of the Rebuffat-Pierre route on the Eperon des Cosmiques. Fantastic golden granite and nobody around! In August I managed to join up with a keen Scottish contingent (Neil, Warren and Andy) on a weekend up at the Col de Midi. We did the traverse of the Pointes de Lachenal on our day of arrival (which is a really nice short outing), before (on the 2nd day) Warren and I did the Contamine-Mazeaud on the North face Triangle and then continued to the summit of Mont Blanc du Tacul. This was a great route and was in fantastic condition. Neil and Andy did the Chere couloir and really enjoyed that. This was a week or 2 before the tragedy on the voie normal of the Tacul (which is still in a very active and dangerous state).Later in August I did the NW arete of Mont Tondu with Barry Atkinson. Mont Tondu is a lovely peak sitting at the SW end of the Mont Blanc area, overlooking the Tre la Tete glacier. Its a great route, not hard (PD-) but full of character and very varied. We stayed in the Conscrits hut, which must be my favourite refuge, great food and a really 'sympa' guardian. We had our own room so I slept unusually well!
Click on the title above to go to my Alpinism web-album if you'd like to see some photos.
A friend (Colin) is due out today for a 10 day spell, hopefully we'll get some good stuff done.
Will update this as appropriate!
Regards, Nick
