Whilst there are plenty of climbers and skiers heading up the Aiguille du Midi, there are unsurprisingly not many tourists and the big Grepon car park felt deserted for early summer. There were however, plenty of people on the Cosmiques Arete!
Par contre, we had the Arete Laurence to ourselves and enjoyed a very snowy and rapid traverse with a good track over nearly all the rocky bits that appear later in the summer. At a relaxed pace, it was only 1hr from the Midi station to café in the Cosmiques Hut.
With much warmer temperatures arriving in the next few days – we are probably now just past the peak of the impressive early summer snow volume. It is great to see so much snow on the glaciers and lots of teams were enjoying the tracks and snowy conditions on Pt Lachenal although there is lots of serac debris on the lookers right of the main summit peak. It’s worth staying tucked in towards the base of the North Face if heading that way.
There was actually a bit more snow stuck to the Triangle du Tacul from recent warmer showers and it looked less stark & icy than a couple of weeks ago. There was a caravan of teams heading towards the base of the Chere Couloir and it looked like there was some ice on at least the first pitch of the Perroux although not clear if it was any good!
There were teams heading up the Contamine – Négri and also a track from the top of the Triangle heading up on towards the shoulder and summit of the Tacul with various teams and ski, skinning and boot tracks on the Voie Normale slope too.
The Cosmiques Arête also had many ascents today and is also well snowy with care required with the soft snow on the south side of the ridge but generally decent conditions in the tracks. There is lots of snow in the area of the first abseil / down climb and a slightly delicate traverse just below that to get across to the new rappel anchor on the South side of the ridge. Most teams were sticking to the South side for this section although there is a north side alternative too which looks more intricate!
There are some slightly different passages to normal on the rest of the route with some good logical alternatives to make the most of the high snow volume and reduce the need to commit to any exposed snow slopes on the sunny south side. The crux wall is still mainly buried but steadily emerging from the snow and the upper traverse on the north side and icy chimney above was good fun in the icy early season conditions.
Further round on the North Face of the Midi it looked like the Mallory had been tracked in ascent but no tracks on a still very snowy looking Frendo Spur. The snow pack is in the transitional phase as summer temperatures arrive with still impressive snow volume and numerous big snow slides can be seen around the range. A good overnight freeze plus rapid efficient climbing would be important allies for good conditions on snow routes at the moment…and a decent existing track would be pretty handy too!
More lifts including those at Le Tour and Brevent Flegere will be opening this weekend, great for access to the middle mountains but do note that there is still lots of continuous snow on the steep approach slopes to, for example, both the rock climbs in the Aiguilles Rouges and the approach to the Albert Premier Hut from the Col de Balme.
Summer 2021 Courses & Guiding Availability
For group courses, we have spaces available on the following courses plus many more on our Full list of courses here and please get in touch if you would like to arrange some private guiding & mountain adventures this summer either in the UK or the Alps.
- Mont Blanc & Weissmies course 23-29 June
- Mont Blanc training weekend in the Scottish Highlands 19-20 June and 17-18 July in Snowdonia
- Matterhorn training weekend in Snowdonia 31 July – 1 August
