Tuesday 2 August 2011

Frendo Spur






After loosing my axe, Kenny and I had to head down to Chamonix to pick up my mountaineering axe to replace it. So as we were down we had a burger and some beers. This morning we took an early lift up the Aguille Du Midi but got off at the half way station. Our plan of action was the classic Frendo Spur. As we didn't get the first lift, there were several teams ahead of us but by the time we had got to a hard section and roped up, we had passed them all. There was one other team we passed higher up, they had bivied out over night. The rock was dry and clear from snow, there were a few snow patches here and there but never required us to put our crampons on. We were able to move pretty swiftly and we really wanted too because we didn't want to be on the snow crest when it get soft and mushy in the midday sun. Also we didn't really want to bivi out. We did carry bivi kit with us which we didn't need but we still made a swift ascent, topping out in 6 hours. All the rock sections were pretty steady and we only pitched a handful of times. The snow crest was exciting, we mover together all the way up to the steep ice section which was probably like Scottish grade 4. Really good route, another top day out in the Alps. The weather looks to be turning in a little so were going to head to Switzerland and see what we can find there.

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