UKC

In this month's Crag Notes, Natalie Berry writes about shifting seasons and the impact of climate change on the Plan de l'Aiguille, the half-way point between the Chamonix Valley and its famous skyline of pinnacles. 

Spending time in and growing to know a place heightens a sense of responsibility towards it. The choughs in the Mont Blanc massif are like canaries in a coal mine, I realise. A sign of crises present and future as the mercury rises: crumbling mountains, melting glaciers, devastated ecosystems and climbing routes relegated to memory and media only.

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Nice article. I particularly liked this phrase: "there's a silence that nonetheless has a sound." That resonated with me. As did the descent of the Montenvers ladders taking you down through glacial time.

I remember, in the 1980s, using an old guidebook to set off for the Biancograt on Piz Bernina, which described a quick scoot up an icy gully. Instead we found ourselves on a slow and loose ascent, the gully having melted years ago.

Beautifully composed, Natalie

First time I've heard of the Mont Blanc massif described as a "crag"!

I like your article though. 

Nice article, I enjoyed this. Having been going to the Alps for a for a few years now, the descriptions of the changed environment really resonated.