I started my 2016 summer alpine season nice and early, with a five day visit from friend and client Andy.
Andy came with a very open “lets se what the weather brings” attitude, but we were pretty keen to get up into the high mountains and give Andy some mixed climbing practice and training. So day 1, we set off for the Aiguille du Midi to have a look around and perhaps climb the Chere couloir as a warmup route.
As soon as we were walking across the glacier though, we could see the other teams heading to the same route and so changed our plans to a traverse of Pointe Lachenel, talking through some alpine climbing techniques and trying various direct (harder) lines that were basically soft powdery snow on rock. I was glad we hadn’t tried anything harder!
The weather turned quite unstable after that and we were making plans on a day by day basis. We had a good session recapping some self rescue techniques for multi-pitch climbing and an entertaining morning dangling on steep ground aid climbing.
Apart from those sessions we were out rock climbing, with Andy leading me up many, many pitches of quality climbs with me chucking in the odd technical tip. We talked a lot about mental preparation for leading hard routes, and Andy threw himself at various tricky climbs, taking some falls and ticking some classics along the way.
Andy leading the way to Pointe Lachenel
Just before trying some soggy technical climbing
Nice mixed mountaineering ground on Pointe Lachenel
Italian rock climbing
Bolted crack climbing – a superb route in the Aosta Valley
Seven pitches at Macaby, Aosta valley.
Andy leading on the final picthes.
Aid climbing practice
Retrieving gear via prussiking
