We arrived in Chamonix on Monday morning and quickly made plans for our next adventure. We wanted to climb the index, a multi-pitch route in the aiguilles rouge. The weather looked good and we packed our bags to walk in on Tuesday, bivy, then climb the route, and another if time allowed, on Wednesday. Unfortunately when Tuesday arrived we checked the weather one last time and there were now 50kmph winds predicted up in the hills. Not ideal climbing conditions, but we consoled ourselves with some crag climbing at Les Galliands, it has amazing views of mont blanc and aiguille du midi even when its cloudy.

The next day we decided to test out our new crampons and try a bit of easy ice climbing on the Mer de Glace. It’s pretty easy to get there, the Montenvers train runs up every half an hour, and although it was raining we decided we would go up anyway. There are lots of ladders down on to the glacier and it’s about a 20 minute walk from there until we were on the glacier properly.

We found a few places to test out our crampons, not the roped climbing we were hoping for, more like ice bouldering and ice traversing, but still fun and less hassle than setting up a top rope.

I also had a go at making an v thread in the ice which you could technically abseil off, apparently.

The rain cleared up towards midday and we had a walk up the glacier to look at the moraine, even though we been here the year before it had changed quite dramatically already, but was still incredibly beautiful. We could just about make out the impressive grand jorasses in the background too, perhaps one for next time…