In reply to SteveM:
Hi Steve,
I'm out here at the moment, flying back tomorrow. It's my first ever ice climbing holiday so I'm not sure if my judgement on conditions is that good... Our week started and the ice was thin on Cascade de lillaz P1, P2 and P5. By the end of the week this had fattened up noticeably and all pitches were climbable (for my standard). Like you said, one day this week we had a -17degC walk in to a route, to find the ice was very brittle and we ended up backing off as we didn't feel that confident on it. Today we went to try Artistico, the ice was quite wet and soft as it was much warmer. Again, we backed off as it felt quite hard for WI3 and I was shattered after the first pitch. There are lots of people about and plenty of frozen falls, we have seen people in Lillaz gully, Troll, Thoule, Patri, Artistico and plenty of other falls that we didn't know the names of. It does look like it is warming up a little bit, but hopefully there will still be plenty of ice left for you.