Cold Fingers and a new pair of Expedition Mitts

15th- Worked in the morning and planned on going out climbing. But nothing went to plan. So sat in the Petite Kitchen and planned to go on Tuesday!

16th- Verbier avec Jennivive. Took a road trip through to Switzerland in New Blue, really nice sunny hot day to adventure to a different skiing area. We were on a bit of a holiday so spent the morning racing around the pistes, followed by an off piste adventure and a rather long stop in the 'Carlsberg Chalet' where we got stuck into a bit of local Rosti and Salad. Nice day! Good Sun, good off-piste possibilites for the next powder day!

17th- First lift on the Midi to go climb Gabarrou Albinoni Gully - armed with a new pair of Millet expedition mitts, a nice looking route on the East Face of Mont Blanc du Tacul. Great fun and even though we were third on route, there wasn't too much ice coming down but parties were moving quite slowly through the steeper sections. In the end we started to abseil before the crux as my fingers havent really recovered since the last episode (see Gran Paradiso North Face) and we were a bit wary of continuing through only to be slowed down by abseil traffic. Still... great climbing in an impressive valley.

Gabarrou Albinoni Gully- The very thin looking gully running up the centre of the photograph. 11 pitches of good snow & ice conditions made climbing quite quick. About 500m TD (Alpine Grade)

We were the third group on the climb due to schoolboy error on the lift system
(first midi lift holds more than the second one!)

From the bottom of the route we skinned back up onto the Vallee Blanche and hiked round to the 'Abri G Perroux' hut aka 'Shit Shack' perched on the rocky spur down the way from the Cosmiques Hut for a cold rest, supper and sleep. We still wanted to go do the North Face of the Tour Ronde the following day - so decided to sleep on it and set the alarms for 5.30am.

18th- 'I like all the girls, I like all the girls' repeated on Plum's alarm as a sign it was time to wake up. I went back to sleep. We unwrapped our down caterpillars and made a brew.... after sleeping on it and acting sensibly yesterday we decided we probably should leave the North Face for a coupl more weeks as I was still feeling the cold in my finger tips after just sorting a few bits of gear out. So we watched the sun rise behind the Grand Jorasses and decided to take a steady start to the day and change objectives. The plan was now to ski around the Valley, take some pics and eye up some potential routes and access for the routes in the area. It was nice to skin up into the top of the valley by the face of the Tour Ronde and have a look somewhere new.



Sun was beating down, another lovely day. The high pressure was looking after us. About 9.30am we decided it was time to maximise the sun on te balcony and ski'd full pelt down the Vallee Blanche and this time decided to go on the Montenvers Train back down to Chamonix, the home run isnt quite so good at the minute!

Feels like I wont be up to much more Winter Alpinism this year.... should wait for the fingers to heal completely. There is always next year to finish off/carry on the tick list! Should be back for the Tour Ronde this year, looks fairly straight forward and fast from the first lift of the Midi.

19th- Work. Croissants are in the oven :)