UKC

Anyone know what conditions are like in France for ice climbing - Chamonix, Vanoise areas?

In reply to oldrockjohn: just back from Vanoise the skiing was great , but the ice is not in its to warm my friends went up to climb ice but it was falling down , I'm not an ice climber but my friends are very accomplished at it and say it needs to get very cold to bring it to condition.
Hope that helps

Al

In reply to oldrockjohn: They are good in cogne at the moment-climbed Lau Bij on Thursday and saw others were on Lillaz gully. First pitch of Cascade di Lillaz was cascading though! Saw pictures of Patri on twitter from today which looked fat. Didn't see what happened to the argentiere icefalls early last week in the warm temps but there is a chance they fell down. Icefalls at reposoir, col de columbiere were completely gone when i went on wednesday.

In reply to oldrockjohn: Also the easier routes in Valsaveranche were good on wednesday but the steeper ones had fell down.

In reply to machars: Thanks for that. We are based near Annecy - so not worth us driving to look for things that are collasping.

In reply to oldrockjohn: It is colder there now i think though i left on friday.

In reply to machars: see http://www.ice-fall.com/ for southern French alps

In reply to Doug: Specifically :

http://www.ice-fall.com/ri/Conditions/de/glace/307.aspx

The areas in green have been recently updated, those in red have not. Don't worry too much about the "never been climbed", it is the en condition that you want to see.