Pics; Top- Me having just passed the bergschrund.
Middle – Me on the mixed ground, neer the top of the route
Bottom- A very lucky person getting choppered to safety
Knowing that it was in ok condition, Damien and I headed over to the Petit Capucin to climb a route called “Chippendale”. This is an icy mixed line which is about 300m in length. The ice on the route was not as fat as the guide book suggested but it was still ok, there were some short tricky sections on the route going at around WI 4 and Scottish VI/6. Damien and I moved together on the route which made for a quicker ascent but also made the trickier sections feel a little out there! Once we had reached the top we made six fairly stress free abseils (apart from some dodgy looking pegs) down to our skis.
As we started to ski down the Vallée Blanche it was starting to get dark and by the time we had negotiated the mine field of crevasses and reached the Requin Hut night had fully set in. But as the sky was totally clear we skied down using our head torches and some help from the moon. As we were descending the last ice fall before the walk up hill to start the James Bond Trail, Damien and I were sure we could hear someone shouting for help! We stopped to listen and sure enough there was a man stuck high up on the right hand face calling to us. After some shouting back and forth we called the Helicopter service which arrived about 20 mins later and picked him off the steep icy face. Feeling happy with our selves for saving the guy from a chilly night out in the mountains and discussing how lucky he was as we were probably the last people descending that night we made a relaxing descent down to Chamonix.
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