Contamine- Pointe Lachenal

Summer is well and truly here in Chamonix and its been really hot over the last couple of weeks. With such a high isotherm and a lot of previous snow fall the snow conditions have been a little dangerous, so i have been out on some of the brilliant  rock climbs that are on offer.

Last weekend i headed over to the Pointe Lachenal with Luca Pandolfi and climbed the perfect granite on the Contamine route.

Luca climbing and two people on the crux pitch in front

Ben starting up the crux finger crack with the top of the Gervasutti couloir in the background.

Ben a little higher up the same crack.

Yesterday i climbed another great route with Hugh, this time a multi pitch sport climb called La fin de Babylone. This is on the other side of the valley in the Aiguilles Rouges, the gneiss rock here is very different but equally brilliant to the large crystal granite on the Chamonix aiguilles side. This route takes a line on the south face of Brevent under the cable car and is reasonably sustained although i felt the two 6c pitches were probably soft for the grade. The climbing is varied and excellent throughout and i would highly recommend it! Now the temperature has dropped a little and things are a bit safer hopefully i can get on a big route soon. We didn’t take any photos but the topo is below.