Piers and I trawled the guidebooks before heading out to Chamonix, looking for routes and peaks that took our fancy before arriving in the valley. I think every alpinist has a hit list of routes that they wish to climb. We were only out in Chamonix for 12 days so had to make the most of our time there, so after a quick first day up the Aiguille du Midi with some time on the glacier, a traverse of Pointe Lachenal and the Cosmiques Arete, we were booked into the Albert Premier Refuge above Le Tour. Our aim, the Forbes Arete on the Aiguille du Chardonnet.
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| Aiguille du Chardonnet - Forbes Arete follows the left skyline |
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| Eyeing up our objective |
It was a roasting day as we plodded up the path towards the refuge glad of trainers on our feet rather than our rigid mountain boots. The path to the hut is well travelled as it is situated on the edge of the Tour Glacier and no ice gear is needed and a round trip is a popular day walk with walkers. We used binoculars to eye up our route, which is visible from the hut, apprehensive of a windy forecast due the following day.
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| Forcing a smile thinking 'Wheres the sun?' |
The alarm went at 2am, far too soon and we headed down to force some food and tea down before setting out into the night. We were the first team to set off, keen to make the most of a settled night before the wind strengthened at dawn. We glacier crossing was straightforward enough with plenty of tracks to follow we began to climb the steep initial snow slopes to reach the arete. Our visibility was dropping as we climbed higher into the clag above, hoping it would burn off as the sun rose. We continued up the snow bosse and the footprints began to disappear, it was 6am and our headtorches still led the way through the cloud. The sun must be here soon; that thought lasted a while. We climbed upwards to reach the arete to find a lot of soft powder snow.
The wind was whipping over from the West side of the arete as we made progress along the more sheltered East side. We kept hearing voices, unsure if they were following us or climbing up the popular Migot Spur on the face. Our speed slowed as we were making short pitches through soft snow which covered the rock and slid down the face below as we tried to stand upon it. We reached a few snow saddles and the soft snow had corniced in the small cols and felt very sketchy.
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| Piers on the summit of the Aiguille du Chardonnet |
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| Has to be a summit selfie! |
We had passed the guidebook time, which is not surprising considering the conditions we were facing, but we were hoping that we would reach the summit soon, how long could this arete continue. We cloud was still not lifting and we could see around 20 metres ahead, but the biggest problem was the temperature as we grew colder thanks to the wind chill and our decreasing speed. We managed to relocate ourselves in the guidebook description as we reached a large gendarme, which was situated close to the summit, thanks to a short break in the cloud. I lead one more pitch and skirted around the bulk of rock and up to the summit, as the wind whipped the cloud around us and the sun was trying to break through. It was like Scottish winter!
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| Atmospheric gear sorting |
Descending the steep snow slopes wasn’t as bad as I was expecting by combining a mixture of sort abseils, daggering and facing out we made our way to the top of our abseils to reach the hanging glacier below. I was glad of a break in the cloud as we started this descent. Three abseils down a gully took us back onto the tracked hanging glacier below. The tracks crossed the bergschrund and weaved through huge crevasses as we descended to the Tour glacier. I am incredibly intrigued by these glacial environments, looking down into crevasses as I pass them, and just looking at the huge crevices in awe of their formation. We reached the Tour glacier and headed back to the refuge for a quick refuel before continuing down to the valley, and the pizza shop in Argentiere.
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