Chamonix Activity Report: 20th September 2009
Today is the last day of opening for the Brevent gondola, the last of the main Chamonix valley lifts still in operation. However, Les Houches remains open till next weekend and the Aiguille du Midi and Montenvers train continue operating into November, with a short 2 week break in October for the train. You can find a full list of lift opening & closing dates here >>
The weather has been varied and a lot cooler than in previous weeks but there is still fun to be had in the sun while watching the snow level slowly descend! Many had their last day of downhill at Brevent today or last climb before the snow begins to roll in. The next time we will be seeing the lovely sights from Brevent (unless we hike) will be on a cold snowy December morning!
With the lifts closing it's a great time to see what lower altitude things there are still to do. There are of course a massive number of accessible hiking/biking trails and a large amount of crag and slab climbing to be done. Something that I don't do a lot of myself is bouldering but there are many boulders all over the valley for all different levels of climber. Some boulders in the valley will have a bolt at the top you can secure yourself to by rope, or you can bring a bouldering mat along making the landings a bit softer!
We made our way up to Col de Montets by catching the train (which is still running on a fairly regular basis - see the timetable here >>) up to Montroc and walking the short distance following signs to Col de Montets. When you get to the road by the nature reserve follow the path which eases off to the left where you will find a series of boulders as you walk up the path. There are many boulders in this area so we had a little look round and picked one we liked the look of.
There were many different route possibilities for every level of climber on here, so we started at some of the easier routes with shorter pitches to them, slowly building up our confidence to attack the harder ones. The range on this particular boulder varies from 4-7 on the difficulty level, and for us having a go at the routes with no rope or boulder mat, each one felt like it was the level above for the fear of falling and hurting ourselves! We slowly made our way round to some of the longer, more technical routes. It was a really good opportunity to find a certain problem on the rock and keeping working at it till it becomes right. While we were tackling some problems and having a go at routes we felt were pretty tricky, there was another bunch of climbers having a go (and some were succeeding!) at traversing the whole boulder, without touching the floor at all! A big part of this boulder was completely upside down! So it was amazing to watch people climbing upside down and the techniques involved for doing so, although quite far away from putting it in to practice ourselves! The boulders in and around Chamonix are a great places to go if you are coming out to Chamonix climbing on your own and want to meet like minded folk, or like us you just want to marvel at the skills of talented that hang around these parts!
After having our fill at bouldering for the day we headed back down the Balcon sud footpath which goes all the way back in to town where we headed for a couple of beers at Chambre Neuf, which is right next to the train station in Chamonix so a good spot if you didn't fancy the walk back!
Don't forget to keep an eye on our What's On Calendar for a full list of events taking place over the summer months.
