Valsavarenche today

I had a change of plan this morning - the plan was to head up into Valaille the parallel valley to Valnontey 5mins drive from Cogne, but with overnight temperatures of only -3 degrees here at La Barme & with many people around climbing only a handful of routes, I decided to head over into Valsavarenche & up to Pont which is around 2000m in altitude where I hoped it would be colder & quieter.

We got both!

It was -6 degrees when we arrived at the parking, at the base of Antares & were the only climbers in the valley today, only 1 or 2 cars passed us during the whole day! - it was so quiet, we had the whole valley to ourselves 

Antares was in great shape.

Antares WI 3+/4 110m, Valsavarenche

Emil leading the first pitch of Antares

Teaching leading - Mathias doing a great job leading the 2nd steep pitch of Antares WI4

Emil enjoying leading the 2nd steep pitch on Antares today

Emil working his technique on steeper more technical ice on the Hose Over!

We found a 30m pitch of ice by the side of the road on the way down from Antares. I called it the 'Hose Over'. It was a great pitch of ice, very steep & technical lower down, which meant that we could really work the technique & have a great finish to the day.

We passed Rovenaud on the way out of Valsavarenche which wasn't in condition, nor was Placche Di Rovenaud the ice routes up & right.

Valaille tomorrow?

Safe climbing

Ade