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| The Route, up the left side, down the right |
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| Bucky on the summit of the Aiguille Chardonnet |
The weather forecast for yesterday looked iffy. The weather forecast for today, however, looked fantastic. In light of this Bucky and I decided to do a very short day of climbing yesterday at the Aiguilles Rouges crag and then catch a bus to Le Tour and head up to the base of the Aiguille Chardonnet and camp the night. The plan for today was to get up early and attempt a very long mixed alpine route. The ascent involved about two hours of glacier travel, then about two hours of steep snow and ice climbing, then about two hours of a ridge traverse with rock and snow. I was excited to get the crampons back on again after such a long hiatus. The morning up at the Aiguilles Rouges was awesome. I started by leading a 6a+, then Bucky led a 6b, then I led a 6b (my first sport lead of that difficulty!) then Bucky put up a 6c, which I managed to follow on top rope. That was the most difficult pitch of this trip for both of us! We cut the day short and went back to the flat to pack up for the overnight stay near the Albert 1er hut. After an hour long bus ride to Le Tour we began the two hour hike up to the Tour glacier. There was some beautiful scenery along the way, but I couldn't help but notice some ominous looking clouds rolling in right about the time we got to the hut. I told Bucky we needed to get a move on, so we quickly found our campsite and about half way through setting up the tent the rain started. Not too hard, mind you, but a steady drizzle. While we were still setting up and getting ready to cook dinner the drizzle turned into full on rain. We ended up cooking dinner inside the tent with all the vents open! All night the rain continued until I passed out at about 9:30. Upon waking at 3:00 we looked out the tent flap to see clear skies and a beautiful red moon. After groggily getting ready to climb we hit the trail at about 3:45.
We tried to follow the cairns, and eventually the foot tracks through the glacier, but we missed a turn at some point and ended up adding about 30 minutes on to our approach. The guide book says this climb is supposed to take about 8-9 hours roundtrip, and due to our previous experience I could only assume this meant it was going to take us about 12 hours. This 30 minute delay left me certain that we were going to miss the last lift down of the day. The walk down isn't nearly as bad as that from the Plan de l'Aiguille, but it still made me sad. Every other party on the Forbes Arete route was way ahead of us, but by the time the sun rose (breathtakingly!) we had made up quite a bit of ground. So much so, in fact, that we had passed two parties before we even got to the ridge crest! Bucky and I agree that snow and ice climbing in the 30° to 75° is our jam! Both on Mont Blanc and now this route we have just crushed the time estimate. The ridge line was mostly distinguished by some really fun climbing, that we accomplished really slowly. We would climb through a section then wait for the parties in front of us. Then on and on again until we made it up and over the summit, down the descent route and on to the glacier below before we could go our own pace again. Even with the wrong approach and waiting for parties on the ridge we ended up finishing the route in 8 hrs and 40 minutes round trip from the hut. As this was actually withing the estimated time range I was shocked. Most importantly, however, we made it back to the lift in time to ride down! The Forbes Arete was a very fun route, and the Tour glacier area is very beautiful. There are many more routes in the area so we will be back. Last note on our day today. The bus ride back to Chamonix. Oh, man. The bus totally filled up at the end of the line in Le Tour and proceeded to be jammed even tighter by one or two people at every bus stop between there and Chamonix. Bucky commented that the bus ride home was the hardest thing we did today. It didn't help that we had to stand in our mountaineering boots after a long day in the "sultry" heat with a whole bunch of other climbers with BO just as bad as ours! I digress. Looks like rain the next few days, but we will probably find something fun to do.
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