Janey's Birthday - Climbing in Aiguille Rouges

Since the forecast wasnt looking too great today we decided to get the bus up to Argentiere and walk in to the lower sector of the Aiguille Rouges, and what a trek it was.

We missed the bus we were aiming to get this morning by two minutes, watched it pull away, nightmare. The silly French bus timetables claimed there was a service every 15minutes, which clearly didnt actually run on a sunday, so we ended up waiting for an hour until the next bus came along! However, eventually got on that and made it to Argentiere, to be faced with quite a trek in the heat. Its pretty hot here at the moment. It almost wasn't worth saving the 30quid on renting a car for the day haha (the bus was free).

When arriving at the face of Chezerys, it appeared a lot of the rock was rather wet (as in streams/waterfalls running down some of the routes). We chose to climb Voie blanche D+ (150m) which felt harder than the guidebook described - it was slab climbing and I cannot slab climb. We also took the harder variation start for the first pitch. Nice route though, although 4th pitch a little on the damp side.

awesome view from the bottom of the crag - weather was nothing like forecast told us?!

Route finding

more views

Keith on P1

Keith at P3/4 belay

 We abseiled off (scary as usual) and descended back to Argentiere rapidly in fear that we would miss our bus once again! Saw lots of chamois'/ibex's (we do not know the difference), but sadly no marmottes like the guidebook suggested we may.

getting rather close on the path back down :)

Keith then took me out for a lovely birthday dinner consisting of duck, bottle of red wine and a cheese selection to finish. YUM.

nom nom

Think we will have a chilled day tomorrow as our legs are knackered and we could do with a lie in. Weather looks pretty minging anyway! Maybe I will spend more of Keith's money in the nice shops here :)

Janey/Keith