By the end of octobre Jeroen and I went to Chamonix - kind of a gamble, weather had been bad, we had no info about conditions after the hot summer but the forecast was excellent.
After our first night at the parking we went to the OHM to get some info - the story there wasn't too good! Bad conditions on the longer routes or no info at all... We went to Le Fayet for some drytooling and decided to go up to the Aiguille du Midi. Our plan was to try the mixed routes on the Gros Rognon and afterwards maybe Pinocchio on the East Face of Tacul.
We dropped our gear at the Simond shelter and walked to the start of the mixed routes on the south east side of the Gros Rognon. The snow was deep, maybe 30cm, we felt the altitude quite good and when we arrived at the start of the routes we saw that we would need rock shoes for the climbing - there was no ice at all!!!
We went back to the Simond biwak. Next night Jeroen got really serious headeache and next morning we went down as fast as possible. He recovered pretty soon and in the afternoon we were back in Le Fayet for some drytooling again.
Conditions were bad up for good mixed climbing and after two more days of climbing in the valley we drove back home.
beautiful sunset at the Simond Shelter
swim snow at the start of the mixed routes, and no ice at all!
Dinner is almost ready...
drytooling in one of my favourite routes in Le Fayet
