Chamonix II; September 2019
Chamonix equals alpinism. Before I met Kate, I knew I wanted to be there. But I kept putting it off. There was always a grade higher I wanted to be able to send before my first trip. I put it off for years. I kept telling myself, “I’ll go when I’m ready to send the Rebuffat.” or “When I’m ready to climb ‘X’ I’ll go to Cham.” The trip was a pipe dream. Soon after we started dating, Kate would hear me talk about this alpine Xanadu. One day, a month or so into our relationship, she said, “Let's just go.”
We went at the end of summer in 2018. We wedged it into the end of a ten day trip to London and Paris. Kate was a three month old climber and we only spent a few days there. But she got her first sport lead (a 6a!), we swung leads for the first time on a beautiful classic, and we vowed to return. A year later we would be back for bigger longer days.
By the time we retuned in late August of 2019, we had mapped out some objectives, trained, and carved out 10 days for “Cham II”. We planned for big objectives like Mont Blanc via the Normal Route and Arete du Cosmiques. We decided to devote the other days to some late Summer alpine routes.
Weather and conditions always trump plans. Cosmiques was out, and AMS and time management snafus stopped us at the Dome du Gouter. But good trip planning won out and we had done plenty of research on alternatives.
Day 1:
I read about a mellow zone near Cham and decided to get our alps legs underneath us. We climbed a long classic alpine line in Les Mottets as a party of three. I got the opportunity to practice leading two followers, some hard (for me) scrambling, and mellow free solo. We ended the day at Chamonix Micro Brewery and watched the gendarmes pick off tipsy drivers coming back from up valley.
Les Mottets
Day 2:
On Day 2, we set our sights toward the Vallee Blanche via the Aiguille du Midi lift to look for an aesthetic alpine ridge: Arete au Laurence. This route follows a ridge to the Cosmiques hut. To the left is Chamonix Valley and to the right the famous Vallee Blanche. At the natural end of this gem you an “top out” by hoping a fence onto the sundeck at the Cosmiques hut. We did so, and followed it with hot tea and biscuits with incredible views of scintillating Mont Blanc Massif above us.
Day 3:
Our climbing partner, Kris Vorhees, flew to France because he knew we were attempting Mont Blanc. Our plan was to climb it in 24 hours car to car from the train station in Saint Gervais. A google maps gaffe and a train scheduling change meant that making our hut reservation at Refuge du Gouter would be impossible. We took three hours to make it to Tete Rousse. Once there, wee decided to rest a few hours and get an alpine start.
We started climbing at 02:00 and made Refuge du Gouter by 06:00. Kate fell ill and Jason and Kris continued on, but ultimately decided to turn back at the Dome du Gouter at 08:00 having made poor pace. Bailing is never an easy choice on a destination like Mont Blanc, but it ultimately turned out to the be the best decision. The summit was wracked by winds high enough that one climber was blown off the summit ridge. Another 850m was no small chore, and we all celebrated a safe retreat back in Cham.
Jason taking some icy steps
Day 4:
Kris used his last few hours in the valley to para-glide. Vallee Blanche
We hiked to see Le Mer de Glace and took the tram back to town while enjoying glasses of warm wine.
Mer de Glace
Beautiful summer #chamonism