UKC

Reading up on some alpine routes for the summer. Alot of people saying they camped on the Col Du Midi.

Few thoughts are springing to mind:
Is this allowed? Or mostly tolerated?
How do you know you're not setting up on a crevasse? Is it mostly just luck or some probing with a walking pole?
How would one go about acclimatising? Straight up to col du midi and pitch up, or go up to col du plan. Spend a night there and then travel higher?

Thanks

Ash

In reply to dutybooty:

Supposed to drop the tent between the hours of sun up to sundown but many don't. Some horror stories about raids on tents that were left up but I've never seen it.


You will see the "village" and use your commo sense.


Straight up. No pissing about in the plan unless you are thinking about doing a route from there.

In reply to dutybooty:

Cheers mate. So a not too unsensible plan would go along the lines of, into chamonix. Buy food and gas, straight up the midi. Find tent city, pitch tent, sleep, wake up, strike tent, cache all camping gear, go climbing, come back, retrieve cache and make camp again? (if going by the book :P)

In reply to dutybooty:

Absolutely. Done it many times. Often I've just bivvied but a bit of comfort never hurt anyone

In reply to dutybooty:
As has already beed stated I've heard horror stories about illeagal camping and and the authorities going up on helico[pters and conficating tents. I don't know if it's true or not.

About 12 years ago we were there in late June. The temperatures were down to -12 at night, so we planned and dug a snow hole about 300 meters from the Cosmics Hut.

That worked well as it was when we ran out of Petrol we had breakfast in the hut and then went down

In reply to dutybooty: Done it a couple of times on the col, we took a probe and and a good poke around, we had no issues at all. In general the place is a campsite in summer so I wouldn't worry too much. have heard stories but never seen any evidence of authorities getting involved.

Too many people wanting to climb and not enough hut space, what can they do ?

In reply to dutybooty: do take a probe to check your not pitching your tent on a crevasse and do take it down in the day. It's not a campsite up there and despite what others have said I have seen tents taken away by the heli before.