On friday we  did Goulotte Chere, an ice gully on the Mont Blanc du Tacul triangle. It is graded II D 85° 300m, but the belays are bolted and there is some in situ gear. The difficulties are short and limited to two pitches which makes it a perfect introductionary route to alpine ice.

We went up with the first lift, because the weather forecast was not too good again, predicting thunderstorms in the afternoon. It is possible to abseil the route after the sixth pitch, but we wanted to finish the route to the top of the triangle and go down the regular Mont Blanc du Tacul route. When we gut up, we raced over the glacier to the route and speeded up it. At 10.30h we were already at the top of the sixth pitch and we had to decide if we would continue up or go down. The weather was already going worse with some snow showers. We were discussing this issue, when a loud thunder clap finished the discussion and we went down. Unfortunately the weather cleared again not too much later.

Guidebook used:
Mont Blanc Massif: Selected Climbs: Col De Berangere - Col Du Geant v. 1

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 12th, 2008 at 11:40 am and is filed under Climbing, Routes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Tagged with: alpine • Chamonix • Goulotte Chere • ice climbing • Mont Blanc du Tacul
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