Chamonix autumn (Alpine climbing)

Sunday 28 September 2008 07:17PM

The alps have been superb in the autumn for the last few years, so I decided to come out for a couple of weeks this year. Been here for five days, climbing with Tony Stone, and managed to get plenty done. First off we did the Contamine route (7a) on the south face of the Aiguille du Midi, then bivied up high that night, trying to fast track the acclimatisation process. The next day we headed in to the Grandes Jorasses, setting up a bivi below the north face at nightfall. I’ve wanted to climb the Colton – MacIntyre since I was a teenager, ever since seeing an iconic Bradford Washburn photo “moonrise over the Grandes Jorasses”. I tried last year with Tom Spreyer but we were exhausted after ten hours of wading to the bottom of the face. Finally things turned good, the route was in superb condition and we were only slowed by severe dehydration caused by a slight miscalculation over how much fuel we needed. We topped out with a few hours of sunshine to chop a decent bivi ledge and enjoy a spectacular sunset. The night passed slowly since we were too thirsty to sleep very much. We used up the last of our fuel for a litre of water in the morning before the long descent into Italy. Hitching back to France we got a lift from a woman who’s grandfather had climbed the central pillar of Freney with Gervasutti!

Photos here.