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From Dent du Geant
Category: Climbing
Climbing – rock, ice, mountains, boulders, etc.
Sub-categorised for finer classification…
The end of our two week alpine adventure coincided with the UK bank holiday Monday, and as luck would have it some of our friends had booked a long weekend in Chamonix.
Awesome! Crowded! Scary! Knackering! Do I need to say more?
When we eventually got some fine weather we seized the opportunity to complete one of the routes I'd fancied the idea of for a long while, the Papillons Ridge.
We had planned to leave Ailfroide and head over to Courmayeur (to climb the North Face of Tour Ronde) and then on to Cervinia (to climb the Italian - Lion - ridge of the Matterhorn). However, these were thwarted by (yes, you guessed it) the wet weather.
Finally we did get some dry weather. Ailefroide is a bona-fide alpine destination, with stuff like the Meije traverse (next year?) and the Dauphine classic South Pillar of the Barre des Ecrins. But it also offers some amazing rock climbing less than the 15 minutes from the camp site.
Ian, Anna, Andy and Sabiene snatched a gap in the weather to dash to Shepherds for tea at the caff and a quick route.
Ian, Anna, Andy and Sabiene braved overcast skies and headed for the South crag on Castle Rock for a pootle about on some easy routes.
Hey Kats, Trevor has sent me some ghost pictures. Here we are on 'Sounds Like a Rodent' his 1996 route in Wully valley.
We had planned to go to Gimmer today, but like so many a 'plan A', it was changed last minute to White Ghyll (picture right). The reason; although sunny and warm we decided it was too windy to be up high in Langdale. It was a wise choice as the wind was bitingly cold!
