Alps trip 2015

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Tudor
Posts: 48
Joined: Wed Jul 02, 2014 10:11 pm
Location: Leeds, City Centre

Alps trip 2015

Post by Tudor »

I saw there is a an upcoming Alps trip and made me reminisce about my first alpine exposure so thought I'd post some pics and a quick trip report.

Over last summer's holiday I joined up with a friend in Chamonix for some sport climbing (easy stuff as I'm not that experienced), hiking and trail running then up we went to Aiguille du Midi for some alpine routes. We camped below the Refuge des Cosmiques for about 8-9 days and started doing routes left and right to make the most of our time there.

We started with Pointe Lachenal which was a great introduction for beginners and a good confidence booster. It has gentle snow slopes, some cool abseils and amazing views at the top.

Over the next few days we tackled Arete des Cosmiques, Midi-Plan Traverse, Chere Culoir, Mont Maudit and Tacul. Seeing as how the weather had been amazing so far, with only 1 day of a whiteout, we decided to push for the summit of Mont Blanc via 3 Montes route.
Probably due to everything we did the days before we were feeling a bit tired by now and it took us longer than usual to start off. We left the camp around 4am and were the last team of 5 though that day but we managed to overtake 1 of them after Mont Maudit. I started to feel the altitude around 4100m and our pace had slowed down. Every 10 steps I would have to stop and take a few breaths then push off but soon enough I managed to work out a pace which allowed me to move slower but steady. We could see loads of people approach it from the Gouter Route as their route merged into ours.

It was a great day to summit, very mild winds and you could see for miles and miles. We had asked some guys to take a photo of us and turned out they were from our own country which was a nice surprise as we shared foods and talked for a bit while enjoying the views.

Tried celebrating with a big meal at the refuge when we returned but the portions were tiny compared to weeks before apparently, most likely due to it being so late in the season (we were there till 11th September)
I put a link with a few photos as I still didn't sort through the majority of photos and videos with uni keeping me busy.

https://www.dropbox.com/sc/bz7yg3s617if ... yLoxJwRO-a
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Sherpa Kenzing
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Joined: Thu Apr 28, 2005 4:15 pm
Location: Pickering, North Yorkshire

Re: Alps trip 2015

Post by Sherpa Kenzing »

Wow I really enjoyed reading and looking at your photos and video. It brought back memories for me as well, having been to the Alps many times. I do remember doing Mont Maudit and Mont Blanc du Tacul at Easter once, we were traversing to finish on Mont Blanc, but my friend broke his ankle near the Corridor. So we had to spend the whole night on the glacier waiting for rescue. Thanks for that Tudor and hopefully catch up with you on a weekend meet.
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