UKC

I'm heading up to climb cocher-cochon into the traverse tomorrow and I'm taking my big boots + crampons and an axe on the advice of a guide in the haute montagne, however they seemed a bit unsure and I don't want to lug all that stuff up the route with me if I don't have to! 

Has anyone been up in the last few days? I'd love some advice!

In reply to jaderosanne:

you can leave everything at the bottom of the route as its a short walk from the finish to the start again.

I'm pretty sure people I saw last week didn't take anything but rock kit on it as the snow packs are pretty small but ask around in the valley too!

Enjoy the traverse!

In reply to jaderosanne:

I was up there early last week and no crampons were needed on the way too/from this route

Very short time on snow on the way back round to the start but did this in trainers without any difficulty

We went up yesterday so unfortunately I didn't have the above advice! Took boots and crampons and then immediately stashed the crampons as it was obvious they weren't necessary. 

As JFT said, there is a small amount of snow at the end of the route that could be circumnavigated with an easy scramble if you don't take boots. I wouldn't if I was going to go again! Just going to think that climbing with them in my bag was good training!

In reply to jaderosanne: did it three days ago and no snow at all. Approach shoes and rock boots all you need. If you do it in boots most is fine but the final chimney is an absolute sod without rock boots. 

In reply to jaderosanne:

There's still a lot of snow about in the Aiguilles Rouges*, but I wouldn't bother with crampons - you'd be very unlucky to find anything frozen. Every time I've been up this season I've taken boots and a lightweight axe, but if I had any other sensible footwear short of B3s I'd probably not bother with boots either. The axe has definitely been useful, but you could also proably quite happily get away with just poles. Bit of a personal call - I don't often use poles and prefer to have an axe to hand any time I go near more than the odd patch of snow.

* - well, there was seven days ago but it's disappearing quickly.