We got the cable car up to give us a boost on our walk to the Albert Premier hut, this was the last day the cars were running and the last night we could stay in the hut, luckily the weather had decided it was going to be beautiful just in time. The walk up was lovely, much easier than we had found it last year.

We attempted this route last year and were foiled by a hungry fox who came in the night to steal all our food. This year however we were fitter and better prepared. And we didn’t carry our bivvy gear up.

We made it to the hut in time for a coffee and then went down to the glacier to check out the route, we would be going in the dark in the early morning so needed to get our bearings. In order to make it easier for ourselves, and because it was fun, we made some cairns to add to the others to guide ourselves on to the glacier the following morning.

Back at the hut the boy admired the osb, which to his delight, was everywhere. *nb. the crocs are mandatory in the huts, not our preferred style of footwear*

The Albert 1er has a room where people not eating the food cooked by the guardians can cook which is pretty nice really as it meant we didn’t have to go out into the cold to cook and ate with the other guests. Just after dinner the sun was setting over the mountains on the opposite side of the valley and the clouds had setteled just below their peaks.

We got up at 5am after a terrible nights sleep in a room with 8 other people, 3 of them slightly overweight smoking men. I will say no more. We walked out on to the rocky terrain behind the hut and with the help of our cairns (and many others) we were on the glacier within half an hour.

We spent a magical hour on the glacier lit by headtorch with the sun slowly coming up and revealing the aiguille du chardonnay to our right.

Route finding was easy as there was a good track, although this was our first encounter with a wet glacier and some of the exposed crevasses were big. We were roped up 15m apart (our earlier coil taking practice paid off somewhat here) but walking round corners across snow bridges was slightly scary.

From here we walked up a steep col and out into the sunlight on the trient glacier. It’s difficult to put into words how amazing this was, there was no one else here (we were the first party out on a quiet day), the sun had just risen and there was nothing but mountains and snow in every direction. After shedding a layer we continued on to the rocky scrable up to the summit of the aiguille du tour.

We crossed the bergshrund and went up on to a little path before scrambling up to the summit.

A guided party who we shared a room with last night got to the top when we were there which meant there was someone to take the all important summit photo for us! The guide who we had chatted to in the hut the night before was enthusiastic about us and said we moved well together which obviously made us basically swell with pride…he then suggested we have a go at the forbes arete on chardonnay, and now the boy will talk of nothing else!

Back on the glacier the enthusiastic guide was nice enough to take a photo of us.

The long walk down beckoned and we walked back across the glaciers to the hut where we got to go in the winter hut which was now open for the season. It was very cold inside!

The walk down was long and tiring, our mountain boots are not made for walking long distances! We also got caught up in some sort of sheep and goat migration, and given our previous experience with goats we were a little nervous around them.

However it was completely fine and we made it down to the van eventually and got chatting to a woman who was just completing a 4 week walk through the alps and was treating herself to a night in a hotel in chamonix. We gave her a lift into town and treated ourselves, not quite so extravagantly, to hot showers and a campsite for the night.