Chamex office climbing Aiguille du Tour

 As the Chamonix Experience office was quiet last week we thought we should take the opportunity to benefit from the nice weather and have a staff outing in the mountains. Martina, Elizabeth and Anne headed up to the Albert 1er refuge for the night to climb the Aiguille du Tour.  

We had a beautiful evening and an amazing sunset so we were all out with our cameras taking some nice photos of the sunset. It was really nice to be up at the Albert 1er hut and meet Claude, the refuge guardian, and his team. They are working hard all summer providing food and beds to sleep in for our guides and groups. Aiguille du Tour is the most popular training peak before you climb Mont Blanc and usually part of our prep acclimatisation program on the 6 day course.

 

We were allocated beds in the guide’s dormitory…. not sure if we should consider ourselves lucky or they should, but we were certainly not the ones snoring……!!! After this excellent night’s sleep we got up at 4 o’clock for breakfast. I was trying to explain the beauty of an early alpine start to my colleagues……and I must say that we had a pretty chirpy little team walking up the Glacier du Tour in the sunrise. Most of the way is just a walk up the glacier.

We went over Col Superior du Tour and and into Switzerland around the back of the summit  to go up the “voie normal”.

The last bit up to the summit is a nice little scramble and then you find yourself at 3544m with a beautiful view of Mont Blanc and the whole Mont Blanc range in one direction and the Matterhorn, amongst other Swiss peaks in the other direction.  

After this very nice little adventure we are hoping to climb Mont Blanc together before the end of the summer. Anybody wants to join????

photo-blog Martina Palm 29 Jul 2008