by glaramara
I shall keep this brief. Due to moving house and losing lots of climbing partners recently, ended up doing the annual pilgrimage Alpswards with the GF. We began in the Escrins, based at the mosquito cursed campsite in Ailefroide. We humped up to the Ecrins refuge at 3175m in 30 degrees heat. The plan was to climb the Pic de Neige Cordier 3463m, then the Roche Faurio 3730m to acclimitise. The Pic was attempted via the east ridge but appeared to be made of weetabix. This weetabix fell to pieces when touched, dropped down an adjacent couloir, then spat out onto the glacier 600m below. We retreated before we did likewise.
On return to the hut the professionally rude guardian curtly advised us that we hadn't booked another night (which we had) and that the hut was full. We had to descend, cursing the jumped up little sh*t.
Pelvoux was next up at 3943m. On the walk in in the blazing heat, we passed through a recent avalanche run. A 50m swathe of trees had been crushed and stripped of bark and branches, with splinters of rock sticking out of the trees like daggers. When you consider what happens to trees when a car smashes into them (i.e. nothing), one can only ponder the forces generated by a big avalanche.
At the hut the weather turned for the worse, and we set out at 4am next morning with trepidation. At about 3500m while in the Coolidge couloir, the lightening started and we hastily retreated. 2-0 to France.
The plan was to then have a crack at the Barre des Ecrins but the GF came down with Katmandu quickstep so we cancelled. Sick of mosquito's, rock climbers, and french people, we drove up to Saas Grund in Switzerland.
After hooking up with a bloke off UKclimbing, we cable car-ed up to Hohsaas and stayed at the fantastic private refuge. Next day we whipped up Weissmies 4017m in Scottish conditions, the summit negating the French experiance somewhat. On the descent we hired "monster" scooters from the half-way station and free-wheeled 11km down rough track to the valley floor. Outrageously fun silly nonsense.
At the campsite we met people from the Ochils club who mentioned Harry Mac when i said i was LMC. After swapping a few Harry stories, we met again at the Mischabel Refuge in high winds and snow, prior to attempting Nadelhorn 4327m. The eccentric guardian woke us at 4am, to tell us not to get up??!!, then woke us again at 6am. While the Ochils lot poofed out because of the full scottish conditions, we set off and got great views of the Lentspitze-Nadelhorn traverse and the Lentspitze NE face. Ones for the future. Unfortunetly we only got to 4100m and had to retreat due to cold and high winds. Bugger.
And that was it. One summit in 2 weeks but lots of bad weather alpine experiance and half a stone in weight lost. The big charismatic 4000ers still beckon, and i'm afraid the view from my desk of The Ben's nordwand, has shrunk in size yet again.