Mountain Lifestyle: Arete de la Table (AD,5a)

Breakfast at 5am and on the move by half past. It was a dull and murky dawn, which had me a little worried at first. The moon was doing it's best to make an appearance though, which indicated that there wan't too much cloud off the summits.

We followed the Tour Glacier upwards and into the mist, unsure whether to change our plans to an easier objective.

Having located the base of the snow colouir, we climbed some steep snow to see if we could still access the ridge. At least once on the ridge, we should be able to find the correct route....

The cloud and mist didn't feel too threatening, so we decided to go for it and after a cold couple of roped pitches over alarmingly loose terrain, we reached the crest of the ridge, just as the clouds began to lift. Our position was revealed and the views were sensational. It was a magic moment to be there.

We hurried on as fast as we could, as we were unsure of how long the route would take and we keen to be back at the lifts before the last one departed!

It was all golden granite, snow and ice, but occasionally a little plant had taken it's hold on the ridge.

As we climbed higher the temperature warmed and view got better.

Then, at last, I rounded a tower there it was - 'the table' - an improbably balanced monolith that had fallen from the ridge, but not dropped to the glacier below.

Nick joined me and we pondered at a) how it got there and b) how we were going to get on top of it (this being the crux move of the route!).

Nick decided that he fancied taking it on and gave a good battle before returning to the ledge. Next attempt, (without rucsack on) proved to be the key and this time he easily pulled up onto the table. We hauled up the packs and then I followed up to join him.

It was an incredible place to be sat, so we relaxed for a bit and enjoyed a second breakfast of pain au chocolate while surveying the views.

The shadows on the glacier were beginning to shorten and on the other side of the valley, in the distance we could see the huge face of the Emmoson Dam.

The crest of the ridge continued in a spectacular style, with steep fins of rock and big drops off either side.

At one point, we had to shuffle along the crest with a leg dangling from either side!

We moved together for speed and wove our way through the impressive 'gendarmes'.

Every time we thought we wee 'nearly there', another summit would appear...

Until at 11:30, we could climb no higher!

Sat on the summit for nearly half an hour, enjoying the view and munching on some cold pizza. Very happy indeed....

We climbed down the easier 'East Face Route', which took us onto the Trient Glacier on the far side of the mountain.

The Trient Glacier plateau is enormous. We could see three people crossing it and they seemed to be making either very slow progress or it was just a vast distance.

We traversed on the glacier below the smaller Aiguille Purtscheller and crossed over the Col Superieur to re join the Le Tour Glacier, which we followed back to the hut.

Back the hut, we picked up our sleeping gear and continued to loose altitude. A final look back up showed our peak, which we climbed via the right hand skyline.

One hour later and we were gliding downhill on the chairlift system.

We met Clare in Chamonix, having caught a bus into town. Here we transferred into the car and all drove down to Lac Passey for a super refreshing swim. It was 36 degrees down there and the water was bliss. Then to finish off an splendid day, we went for Burgers at South Bar before finally falling into a deep sleep. Fabulous...