Ansemle Baud, Author of Mont Blanc á ski (2003), claimed this tour could easily be done in a half-day by a fast team. Not the fastest team in England, Liz and I took off around 9:30. The glacier that made approach up the SW face quite easy had recently melted and was replaced with a tumbling 70 degree chute of frozen glacial till covered with a thin layer of crystally-sugar-bear dog shit.
After seeing some ex-pats attempt a right up a "40 degree chute" we attempted and found ourself in some M4 terrain. Forced into retreat, we spotted a recently installed via-feratta. No thanks.
When then tried another line and were able to breach the ancient glacier level where it returned to about 40 degrees. Nantillion Glacier (RIP).
For an interesting pictorial summary of the melting of the Mer de Glace, check out this awesome site:
http://www.glaciers-climat.fr/Mer_de_gl ... glace.html
Punching in the bootpack up this easily-accessible tour (45 minutes from the mid-station of the aiguille du midi) I began to be concerned as I didn't see any previous tracks even with 4 weeks of no measurable precipitation. At the top I managed to peer and to determine we would access the chute by rappel due to lack of snow and the steepness (~50) of the upper chute. I stole a nice 6mm 65 meter cord from my roomate Tom (handy for skiing I must say, but use a 6x autoblock with 4mm cordalette, to avoid tumbling to your death).
Crossing the Plan de l'Aiguille under the Aiguille du Plan Glacier
Heading up the SW Couloir. It was real nice, you know like a beach, especially lots of sand.
Me breaching. Daddy like.
Liz entering The Zone.
Down lower when it became more freerideable. The snow was quite good, though a tad variable up high.
C'est assez raide, mec?
Nice exit apron, notice tumbling Moraine. We'll get back to that later.
After traversing far right as possible as told by the guide, I saw some tracks coming in from I assume the Requin hut, so I decided to follow them.
Turns out with normal snow, the now 300-foot (50 feet high in 2003) high sandy, unstable, frozen rock/sand/snow pile moraine proved an excellent test piece for our descent. Unable to take even the sharpest ice tool, this shit is like slab climbing on sand. It sucked. After slowly down climbing to search a solid rock to place an anchor for a rap on 60 degree shit tumbling death, we finally found a sling left by the last pitiful souls who made the same mistake we did. We rapped down just in time to miss the last train and had to take the forest ice luge back to Chamonix, which surprising was only 15-20 minutes of walking.
