More Mont Blanc - is fast and light the way to go?

I'm back to work now up in the peaks after an easy July where I got to ride my bike a lot and generally enjoy some Chamonix summer time.

I did a couple of Mont Blancs in between some big rides and ended up feeling pretty strong and fit right up until I was about to start work again and got hit by an un-friendly case of the Gastro.

4 days later I emerged over 4 kilo's lighter just ready for my next Mont Blanc work!

Any one looking for a weight loss program the Gastro is like a rage running through the system.
Fast and light? Not so fast but a lot lighter! Not recommended as a training program.

It's taken about a week to recover and in the mean time our youngest daughter Loren (nearly 3) also got it and ended up in the hospital for a few days. Ruth and Manon seem to be immune but Ruth obviously hasn't been in the office for a while.

All is now well, we're all recovered and the office is operational again!

I guided Mont Blanc from the Cosmiques yesterday, it was a bit windy up high and cold with fresh snow blowing about after a storm the previous day.

Mont Blanc du Tacul is getting a bit complicated with a huge crevasse blocking the route quite low down on the face. A ladder has been put in place for the crossing but since it was put in the crevasse seems to have gotten wider and the ladder barely reaches now. I was a little worried that it might not still be there on our return but it was albeit barely so I'm not sure how long this route will be accessible. Without the ladder crossing the crevasse would be a major undertaking and near impossible for most.

Mont Maudit is also quite technical at the moment with about 50 meters of steep ice climbing up towards the top.

The wind was blowing hard from the col du Brenva up to the summit and a big lenticular cloud started to form over the summit as we climbed the final slopes. the wind never got so bad that I felt we'd need to turn around so we climbed on and made the summit albeit in a bit of a white out so the view wasn't amazing!

The cloud came in fully then and we descended back to the Midi in white out conditions which could have gotten interesting but the storm held off until the evening as forecast and we dropped below the cloud half way down the Tacul.

A good ascent and a well earned summit.

I'm back up there after the weekend so I hope someone has taken up a bigger ladder!

A couple of days off now to ride my bike again before Mont Blanc and then a Dolomites trip to guide some via ferrata which should be fun.

The Winter courses are booking up steadily, we now have 5 courses penciled in as full (places are only confirmed with a deposit payment) and quite a lot of the remaining courses are looking pretty busy.

There's probably a couple of bookings per day at the moment so we should be pretty full come the Autumn (which is our normal time to 'start' taking winter bookings!) We've had a Northerly wind stream blowing through the past week bringing some cooler air and mixed weather with fresh snow falls down to about 2700m this morning.

Looking over towards the Dome du Gouter the other day, from the final slopes on Mont Blanc, it looked almost tempting enough to get the Snowboard out!

Almost!

Still cool out at the moment but due to heat up again towards mid week so hopefully it will be good weather for my next MB ascent.

All is good in Chamonix!

Neil.