Aiguille du Tour

Usually when we’re in Chamonix, I don’t often get the opportunity to do an easy route, but with Ian supporting me we persuaded Pete to go for the easy but classic Aiguille du Tour. I had wanted to climb on the Trient-Orny Basin ever since we first made our way up there 7 years ago when we did the Haute Route. Now was my chance to have a fairly stress free adventure in the mountains.

Our first thought was to go wonder slowly up to the Albert Premier hut and spend the night there, but a quick phone call later we were told they were full. Plan B was to go direct to the Trient Hut, so we phoned them and secured some beds for the night.

An easy mountain adventure in Chamonix means an easy start… the ski lift from Le Tour. From the top of the lift there is an obvious path which winds it’s way up to the Albert Premier hut, making its way along the right bank moraine of the Glacier du Tour. We left the lift at 10.30 and made it to the hut for midday… just in time for a spot of lunch.

We didn’t hang around for long because we knew it would take a few hours to get up to the Trient hut, so we donned our harnesses and made our way along the path up to the glacier.

The recent snow had made everything look very clean and beautiful, but luckily the crevasses were easy to spot. We made good progress up to the bottom of the Col Superieur du Tour, which we recognised from our Trois Cols adventure. We slowed down up the steep slope and scrambled over the col.

Crossing the Trient Basin on the other side of the col was reasonably straight forward, with a few leaps over crevasses. We made it to the Trient hut by 5pm, perfect timing for tea and chocolate brownies.

That night we had the usual spectacular sun set over the mountains. Over dinner we made friends with some Germans, but as is often the way, we forgot to ask their name!

The next morning, us and just about all the other hut guests (about 18) made their way back across the Trient Basin towards the Aiguille du Tour. Luckily we all left at different times, so we weren’t concerned about bottlenecks. By the time we got to the top of the couloir that leads to the notch between the two summits, there were another couple of teams who had arrived from the Albert 1er hut. They had both had an early start (one at 5am!) so we felt a bit smug as we had only left the Trient hut at 8am.

We started up the Auguille du Tour (sommet S), first along a short snow traverse until we hit the rock. It was an excellent scramble, and plenty of room to pass other teams making their descent. At the top we met the Germans again. The descent was easy enough as well, mostly solid rock with a few loose bits at one point but nothing to worry about. When we made it back to the bottom the Germans shared their chocolate.

All that was left was for us to determine which way we should return to Le Tour. We had thought to return via Fenêtre du Pissoir, but as no-one else had made the trail we decided to simply return the way we had come the previous day, via the Col Superieur du Tour. We decided to take the opportunity to take even more pictures of the crevasses before arriving at the Albert 1er hut again, this time for beer and cake (I know it doesn’t really go but it was lovely).

After beer and cake it didn’t take us very long at all to get down the ski lift and then back to Le Tour.

It was a great stress-free adventure in the mountains.

Series - Chamonix '12

1. At last a day without paint – L’ile aux Razmokets
2. Eperon Nord, North West slabs of
   Aiguille du Peigne
3. Aiguille Rouge
4. Alpine Flower Quiz
5. Shutter Renovation
6. Aiguille du Tour
7. Last Day of Cragging at Gaillands