Day 12: We had a leisurely 4.00am breakfast at the Rifugio Vittorio Emanuele and waited for the bulk of the climbers to set off ahead of us (we hoped they would trample the fresh snow of yesterday and make the path easier for us!). The weather was fantastic and we enjoyed a beautiful sunrise and a » read more »
Day 2: We took the first Aiguille du Midi cable car to do the down hill version of the Vallée Blanche Traverse (AdM to Helbronner). The Snow Ridge from the Aiguille du Midi station down to the Vallée Blanche glacier is most impressive and really quite excitingly steep on both sides. Towards the Helbronner end of the traverse are » read more »
Day 1: We took the Montenvers train from Chamonix up to the Mer de Glace for a bit of crevasse rescue practice and gentle acclimatisation in advance of doing anything more serious. The infamous Mer de Glace ladders turned out to be great fun. We used basic “cow tails” to clip on for extra security and » read more »
This year we went to the Italian Dolomites to have a go at the “Alta Via 2” also called the “Dolomiten Höhenweg”. We went in the last week of June expecting a considerable amount of old snow from the long cold winter, but to our great surprise we encountered some huge dumps of fresh snow. Consequently we » read more »
So this year we thought we’d return to Austria and have another attempt at the “Berliner Höhenweg” also called the “Zillertaler Runde” or even the “Zillertal Rucksack Route” (but not by the locals). We’d attempted this way back in September 2007 but were unexpectedly snowed off. This time we went in the last week of June and we » read more »
Author: Phil Newby