Chamonix Chalet news

Climbing up frozen waterfalls hadn’t been part of our weekend plans, but after a day’s off piste with guide Neil Hitchings, he suggested that we give it a go. It’s completetely new to us, so this seemed like the perfect opportunity to try it out, away from the half term Friday crowds on the pistes.

We all set off to the ice climbing area known as the Cremerie, above the excellent Cremerie du Glacier restaurant in Argentiere, where we got the equipment ready and walked through the quiet forest, past beautiful scupted snow formations on the river rocks, to the frozen waterfalls that we’d be attempting to scale. They were a lot bigger than I’d imagined! This is just the first, small section that we began on. Neil went up first to fix the rope:

Then it was our turn. I was slightly surprised to find myself really enjoying it!

The second section was a lot higher. We clipped into ice screws and waited for the rop to be fixed. Youi can see the curved angle of the ice axes here - once you use them, the shape makes perfect sense, and it’s very satisfying feeling them bite deep into the ice.

Happy to have completed the second pitch safely, we abseiled back down at sunset,