UKC

Half the Cosmiques Arete hit the deck on Monday

https://www.instagram.com/reel/Ch6dcQAjhCW/?igshid=MDJmNzVkMjY%3D&fbcli...

Sugar honey iced tea.

From the account in the 'Dauphine' it sounds like an extraordinary stroke of good fortune that (as far as is known) nobody on or below the arete at the time was wiped out: https://www.ledauphine.com/haute-savoie/2018/08/22/l-arete-des-cosmiques-s-...

At this rate of degradation it won't be long before your best prospects for a claim to fame in the Alps won't be for making a first ascent or traverse but for making the last recorded ascent before the mountain fell down.  Alas: 'ou sont les neiges d'antan?'

Rob isn't there some sort of geological fault running through the arete that makes it particularly susceptible to these recurrent rock falls?

How long before the Midi téléphérique meets the same fate?

funny you should say that - I thought the cables were looking a bit slack this week

I have wondered this  - the summit is almost hollow with tunnels etc I assume it's being monitored......

The tension on the vallée blanche télécabine balances up that of the téléphérique. It's what holds the whole thing in place...!!!

Quite. A friend's son was along it on Saturday or Sunday. I haven't spoken to him since but I suspect he is currently in a reflective mood.

That's right, a chilling thought. Because one day (sooner rather than later in geological terms) it will fall down.

But I have huge problems with the geological time scale. My brain really can't do it, can't see the fantastically (million times?) speeded up image of what actually happened. I was thinking about this recently when I visited Black Rocks again: that the eastern gritstone edges were once part of a huge gentle dome that covered all the limestone scenery that you can see to the west. Yet Black Rocks is so hard, almost like granite - which is why mill wheels could be made from gritstone - that almost nothing, except in the minutest way, has changed on the crag for over a 100 years, as testified by many old B&W photos.

It may be hard but it has fault lines and will fall down in time if undercut by softer rock eroding below... hence so many scarp edges.

Entropy innit

Can someone rescue this video from behind the privacy paywall that is insta?

https://www.montagnes-magazine.com/actus-video-eboulements-arete-cosmiques
 

I must be tired.  I read the headline as 'Most of the alps falls down'...

Probably more accurate!

Well, we all knew that section was going to go the season. But god that was massive.