In reply to CurlyStevo:
> From what I can gather even many of the snow and ice routes in cham area are pretty hit and miss later in the summer in more recent years.
Generally agree, but it does depend quite a lot on how high you are going. If you are trying something like the North face of the Pan du Sucre, then after say mid-June, forget it. But high up toward the summit of Mont Blanc, the situation can be very different, though the aspect of a route can be very important here. The couloir from the Col de Peuterey did not seem to be complete at its base this Summer in very early July, but I am sure that ice routes with a Northerly, shadowed aspect would have been fine.
> I think if its a MUST that you want to actually climb (rather than walk) on snow and ice then planning a trip in the early summer is an idea.
Going quite early (say late June, early July), is a double-edged sword. We were climbing this year in the last week of June and first week of July, good in that places where we have been previously blocked by unpassable, huge crevasses were quite easy to get across, bad in that there was deep, unweathered snow that saw us wallowing up to our knees, where skis would have been very helpful.