Another weather window meant a quick turn around, shower, visit to the laundrette and back up the hill! The next scenic camping location was to be lac blanc on our own little private beach! Perfect location for attempting the Aiguille de Perseverance the next day and near to the refuge that offers proper man size hot chocolate.
The amount of wildlife on show in the Aiguilles Rouges is fab, especially if you are around early mornings and evenings. Lots of really tame bouquetin showing off their horns and cuddly looking marmots. Anyway, enough fauna, back onto climbing.
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| Sexy bouquetin |
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| Funky chamois |
The Aiguille de Perseverance is pretty different to the climbing in the Envers, where the rock and climbing is good right from the bottom. There are 3 interesting pitches on the Perseverance, inc one lovely exposed pitch, but you have to climb alot of choss to get there. We found that we were much more efficient at climbing proper rock than we were at climbing easy choss and it took us quite a while to get to the climbing. Nevertheless we got to the top which was pretty windy and cold and quickly found the ab points to go back down the other side. The descent is a scree slope that is probably twice the height of the peak and about as fun as soul destroying glacier descent that we did the other day.
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| Clare coming up first nice pitch on the Perseverance |
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| On top, not my best angle.... |
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| Looseness on the descent |
The next day we got up early, but not early enough to beat two other teams to the foot of the Chapelle de la Gliere (near the index telepherique). This is an interesting ridge with plenty of good solid climbing on it. There is a really lovely pitch up some corners and then a novelty rasoir edge pitch! It ends at a funny rock finger that is the Chapelle (chapel, not hat as we originally thought - it doesn't look like a hat). And despite some frustrating waits for the people in front we managed to make it back to the cable car and so could eat in Poco Loco again and not have to suffer another night of seafood rissotto.
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| Mmmmm savagely yellow rissotto |
Some welcome rain was due the next two days, giving us time to consume much needed burgers and pain au chocolats. We also had time to pop over the border into the Rhone valley and do some catching up, (as well as purchasing some amazing Valais roadside apricots).
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| Mmmm fresh swiss apricots |
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