Felt a bit of a Chamonix amateur this morning, as our best laid plans had not accounted for several thousand tourists getting in our way! After a leisurely start, we pack bags and walked over to the Midi lift hoping to get whisked up to the high mountains. Unfortunately, there was an enormous queue packed into the square. Having eventually stood in line under the blazing sun and procured a ticket, we were then told that the next available lift would not be until midday! Nick went off swimming and we re-grouped in time for our scheduled ride. Once at teh half way station, we soon left the hoards behind and hiked our way up to the slabs, which were just coming into the sun.
We had not accounted for the snow patch at the base either, so I set off using a rock as an ice axe and carefully climbed the frozen steps of a previous team.
It wasn't really shorts and trainers appropriate, but was over quickly and dry rock led the way from there...
The tricky thing was, actually finding the route. The sheer scale of the rock face meant that following a rough description to the base of the actual climbing was very hard. Every little, corner, buttress and spike, could have fitted the description. After essentially doing a pretty long scrambling route, things began to make sense, but we couldn't locate the start exactly. The topo we had seemed to have us in the right place, so we set off upwards.
For an low grade route on the 'slabs', things soon got much steeper than advertised....
We pressed on until the description really didn't match the route any more! We were on the wrong route. We also had the pressure of catching the last lift back down to the valley, so didn't fancy pushing on into the unknown...
From an old bolted belay, below some over hangs that I didn't fancy climbing though, we beat a retreat. By swinging across the slabs, we did however locate the correct line, which looked much much easier - like Idwal Slabs, only twenty times bigger.
Without walking back to Chamonix, there wasn't time to climb the intended route, so we continued abseiling.
We also located the correct walk in, which was much less loose than the route up we had taken. Looking back up at the sea of granite, it was little wonder that we hadn't found 'the bolt' that marked the start of the climb!
Still, we'd had a good adventure and actually climbed some great rock, so we happy to kick back with an ice cream at the lift station, having arrived thirty minutes before the last departure.
(The slabs are the central sweep of rock below the main peak).
Back in the valley, the heat was intense, but shady enough to enjoy dinner outside as always. (Since arriving here, we not eaten indoors yet).
And then, as it was Nick's last night in town and just to make sure we were really tired, we went out salsa dancing until late in town. Good times.
Slabs of the Peigne:
- Verdon Memories, 5b,6a.......
(not Les Lepidopteres, 5b, as planned!)
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