Another excellent "Alpine Progression" week, with 4 fit clients pushing the limits of their experience and certainly making a lot of "progress"! This course aims to be as flexible as possible, allowing people with previous UK, Alpine or Himalayan experience to develop skills. Great fun, lots of instruction and some fine mountain routes climbed. We started with the normal route on Mont Blanc de Cheilon - one of the best PD routes around.
.jpg "Early start headtorch antics at the Dix hut!")
.jpg "Excellent scrambling on the Cheilon normal route")
.jpg "A team following us on the Mont Blanc de Cheilon")
The normal route went very smoothly, so after a brief summit discussion we continued on along the "reverse traverse". Usually climbed in the other direction, going the wrong way means down-climbing some tricky sections - an essential alpine skill!
.jpg "A fine summit view - and another team perilously close to the East summit cornice!")
.jpg "On the horns, midway along the traverse. Dix hut visible below!")
The next day brought mixed weather and tired legs - but a very useful rock climbing session down the valley at Bramois. Climbing technique, multi-pitch climbing and abseiling, and the importance of not dropping things off the belay...
Legs refreshed, we tackled the long walk-in to the Grands Mountets hut, which surely enjoys the finest imaginable setting for a hut in the heart of the high mountains!
.jpg "It was cold for mid August!")
The hut is surrounded by great climbing. We chose the Besso-Blanc de Moming traverse, starting up fine red rock on the Besso SW ridge...
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...and continuing along the joining ridge through a complex world of pinnacles to the Blanc de Moming summit.
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There's no glacier at all on this route, so you have time to admire the view before descending!
