Mont Blanc du Tacul (4248m)

So for the second time in the last month, I found myself standing on top of a 4000m peak today. I'd met Matt and Alex at 6am in town and by just after 7am, we been transported up to the alpine world, via cable car. With warm jackets and glacier kit on, we left the security of the cable car station and crossed through the gate and down the ridge...

It was a terrific morning to be up high, with clouds bubbling below us and blue sky above.

Firstly, we had to cross the top plateau of the Vallee Blanche....

Before beginning up the snow slopes to the right of the rocky ground. The snow was in good condition and frozen hard. We weaved our route between enormous hanging seracs of ice.

We methodically kicked our way upwards in the cool of the shade.

Behind us, we could see the Aiguille du Midi where we had started from.

The main difficulty on the route is passing a large bergscrund (crevasse) section. A queue of teams were waiting to cross at a bottle neck on the easiest section.

Luckily for us, we had Matt with us, who, using two ice axes, proceeded to climb a harder, but new section of route off to the side!

Using a snow anchor, he soon had us up next to him, above the difficulties and we were off again, leaving the other teams behind us. An hour or so later, the summit loomed into view.

A short rocky section led to summit glory and incredible views.

We had the summit to ourselves, so settled in behind some rocks and leisurely ate some food while identifying the multitude of peaks along the horizon.

A further snowy ridge led to a secondary summit, so we went over to get the views.

Down this side, we could see down into Italy and the Aosta Valley.

Returning along the ridge was cold on the fingers. The wind chill was well below freezing and I had all my jackets on. Some steep down climbing was needed as well as the avoidance of some gaping crevasses.

I down climbed and Matt abseiled over the 'tricky' step, where another team let us pass through.

Then it was back across the plateau to the cable car.

We had a drink to celebrate in the cafe, while looking at our route. We climbed the left hand peak via the steep snow slopes, Mt Maudit is the snowy/rocky one to the right and the white dome slightly right again is Mt Blanc itself. 

In the afternoon, down in a different world, we took a short stroll above the village of Argentiere and I tried to get up to 'Le Shack' where Daragh and I had stayed on previous winter visits. However, the path was overgrown, and wearing shorts and sandles was not a good idea for those wishing to proceed. We opted for some toe cooling in the river instead.

And then to complete a very long day, we watched the finals of the World Cup. It was thrilling to spectate and see literally the best climbers in the world making an insanely hard wall, look quite easy! It went on well into the night and was followed by a huge firework display. We were both glad it was only a short walk back to bed! What a day!