Petit Aiguille Verte

Having recovered from the Aiguille de l'M, I decided to do some mixed snow and rock climbing. The easiest thing in the area is the Petit Aiguille Verte. It is a subsidiary Peak of the very impressive Aiguille Verte. For this route I joined up with Penny Bartlett, Elaine Mullen and Peter O'Neill, all of whom were out for the meet as well.

The Petit Aiguille Verte is a good mountain for a beginner to do. It not too hard, its relatively high at 3500m, and its very accessible, as the telepherique runs to 3200m! You can see this from this picture which was taken from the telepherique station. There is about 250m of snow and then 50m or so of rock climbing. Being easy to get to it is VERY popular. Queuing was the biggest problem we had!

This is Peter on the summit, with the Aiguille Verte behind him. Shortly after this the weather closed in and we got to experience a thunder storm from inside the cloud. Lightning hit the ridge twice and there was some hail too.

Because of the storm we headed down off the mountain as fast as possible. Here Elaine (yellow helmet) and Penny are moving back down the rock ridge. They said their hair was standing out with the electricity. My ice axe was crackling as well! But for us things were more spectacular than dangerous. From the telepherique station we were back in the valley in 30 minutes where people were sunning themselves in shorts and t-shirts.