A beautiful dawn in Paris set the rhythm for the whole trip...
We dorked out over diatoms for a few days, consumed many fine microbiological alimentations, and enjoyed some fancy arts.
Across the street was Au Vieux Campeur, where I bought some 'looser' shoes (50€) and learned from a cool old French climber dude that "there is not really much crack climbing in the Alps. But there are many good liebacks!" Interesting...
While no one should really approve of alpine ladders, it did feel pretty cool to climb all over them.
Yay approachez!
We arrived to the Envers des Aiguilles refuge around 15:30 and decided to climb Le Tour Verte (left) via the Le Piege route. This climb is approached from the hut (right) in 1-2 espresso units (5-10 minutes.)
It started with a widening splitter with a bolt-protected ~5" wide section at the end of the first pitch.
Excellent granite jamming and crystal stepping continued for five more pitches.
The cracks were adorned with flowers; I expected nothing less of l'France.
Czech team α took a detour around us, linking the Le Piege start to the upper Pont des Soupirs route.
Refuges are aid. Aiguille du Moine (I think) at sunset
Upon nightfall a rescue helicopter scanned the ridgeline for someone? Or they were dropping something off at the refuge? I do not know.
On the next day we walked over to the Nantillions for the Guy-Anne route, on the edge of the 'Little Yosemite' wall, which is just becoming sunny on the right.
Cracks hidden to avoid spoiling. The two money pitches on Guy Anne were excellent and felt very vertical.
The top-out extension ('l'Insolite') was clean and bolty, but not as classic as the Guy-Anne proper.
Once again we were the funnest group at the hut and stayed up until midnight or something drinking 2L of wine that I hauled up with me, and some cheap pastis that the Czechs brought up in a plastic bottle.
On the third day I once again woke at first light, and my Czech team waited for most others to clear out before stirring.
Then we climbed the Pont des Soupirs route.
This can be summarized as: 1-2 WA-style BS pitches, 1-2 cool ridge traverse pitches (avec le pont), 2 thin face pitches with many bolts, 2ish decent top-out pitches. Total 5-star route by WA standards; a boulder problem for the Envers. The Tour Verte and Nantillions are like twin Snow Creek Walls.
The forecast called for thunderstorms in the afternoon, and the weather delivered. It hailstormed right after our last rappel. I ran happily barefoot in the snow back to our boots, my toes pushing excruciatingly against shoe rubber with every move (I think my feet swelled up there; I went from climbing with socks on day 1 to grimacing by day 3.)
Meanwhile Czech team α got hailed off of the last pitch of a route on the Tour Rouge and here can be seen abseiling.
That night we spent as much time outside as we could in the deteriorating weather.
I awoke to whiteout conditions and a looming remote work deadline, so I checked out.
I had the ladders all to myself, with water streaming down everything.
I was able to arrange a Swiss liaison with DD, with the promise of America Day parties. We made some pizza deliziosa and then bought some meat and booze. Then this happened!
[DD foto]
L'hospitalité de DD continued; we went sporto at Barberine(?) and I got shut down (as well as two others) on a stiff 32m 7a friction route that had been mistook for a 6b warmup.
So I took fotos of le Beast, until he was finally able to hero (and A0) our crap off the route.
Our vertical senses tempered, we proceeded to Chamonix for a barn bivy, and an early bin up to the Midi for some hawte crack under the direction of notre maître du style.
Le style was not quite as cramped as the three-person belays and rappels.
Later we wandered around town trying to stay awake longer than the sun. Some weird Deutschopera kept us amused.
Everything had been super crowded around the Midi on Sat, so on Sun we enjoyed the best empty cafe and leisurely parted ways.
The last stop on my climb tour was Fontainebleau, where I screwed around on some of the best boulders in the civilized world, watched some hot glow bug-pr0n, and slept in the woods gathering disease-laced ticks.
Pebble splitter
Green light special
Ps. driving in Paris sucks l'ass!
This TR was brought to you by America.
No more rocking the alpine phannypack 
