UKC

My girlfriend and I are off to Chamonix next week for a bit of climbing, amongst other things. We're eyeing up some super-easy multipitch routes (I lead severe reasonably reliably...!) but it would be great to have your thoughts on wet weather alternatives, i.e. weather good enough to be up in the mountains but a bit wet to be climbing rock. Ideally big mountain days but with minimal or no glacier crossing as I've no experience in that regard and she only has a bit.

By way of background, I'm comfortable with nav in the Scottish mountains in virtually all conditions, have lots of winter hillwalking experience and will happily lead Scottish V whether ice or mixed. Girlfriend leads E2 on a good day so could drag us up VS in the wet if necessary, but preferably not! She climbs Scottish V ice but isn't such a fan of the mixed stuff and has a bit less general winter mountaineering experience.

Any ideas much appreciated!

In reply to Tricadam:

http://www.camptocamp.org/routes/54625/en/perrons-de-vallorcine-traversee-e...

In reply to Patrick G:

The Perrons traverse is a really great day out but not really a wet weather alternative.

It's worth considering going through the tunnel and down the Aosta valley if it's bad on the French side. A look at the webcams is a wise precaution though! http://www.lovevda.it/en/before-your-trip/webcams

In reply to Tricadam:

Plenty of good sightseeing/acclimatisation walks on both sides of the valley for when the weather is a bit Scottish! if your staying in the argentierre campsite then you can easily walk up into the aguille rouge from the centre of the village up to the hut at Lac Blanc (signs say about 2 hours, takes me about 45 mins...) with the option of going up some ladders etc as well. from the hut it is an easy scramble up onto the ridge and the aguille belvedere (highest point in the range) can easily be summited at about a grade 2 scramble. there is a tiny 'glacier' to cross below the ridge but in reality it is less of a glacier than the observatory gully snow patch, if it even still exists!

the walk up to lac blanc is worth it in its own right as you get arguably the best view of the Mt blanc range from there!

the walk up and onto the mer de glace is also worthwhile if its a bit damp, and the ladders are reasonable fun if its not too wet.

In reply to Tricadam:

and if you have a car then a trip out of the hills to Lac Annecy or lake Geneva to (hopefully) escape the rain is well worth doing!

In reply to Webster:


Are the ladders OK ?....I thought I had heard there had been some damage due to rockfall or avalanche....

In reply to sbc_10:

they were ok as of last summer, cant comment on this one... but they will get fixed pretty quickly if there was damage as it is the main route to several major huts who rely on them for bussiness

In reply to Webster:

Yes, that's sounds sensible.
I don't know if the ladders are totally clear from surrounding snow and ice throughout the winter. Maybe it was a report of damage noticed after the Spring melt, or maybe there was an avalanche risk early season for anybody using them ??

In reply to Tricadam:

Try Fundays on the www.funalps.com site
http://www.alpine-club.org.uk/funalps/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Fun_Days1....

In reply to sbc_10:
The ladders were damaged this spring and I know that last week the path leading to them was closed, including the access to the slab routes above the ladders, (Grande Echelle etc). To the best of my knowledge the path is still closed. The current advice from the OHM is that you need to go via the ice grotto path to access the Mer de Glace from Montenvers

In reply to Tricadam:
Go to the Ecrins (not a day trip though) or through the tunnel to Aosta (day trip if you want but the tunnel is about €45 return) - can often be a lot nicer on the other side.

In reply to Misha:

Worth thinking about, but check webcams/Meteo France beforehand. Both of those can be pretty bloody miserable as well, if you head off without checking, you can be going on a (quite long, in the case of the Ecrins), wild goose chase.

In reply to Misha:

+1, sport climbing in the lower Aosta valley (short crags to 300m multipitch) can be great even if MB weather craps out.
CB

In reply to Simon4:
Very true...