North Face of Les Droites..

The weather has been good in Chamonix for the last few days, allowing Andy Keith and I to get out on the hill.

Unfortunately most of the lifts are not running at the moment, resulting in some big walks from the valley. We opted to head up to the Argentiere hut (using snowshoes) before climbing the North Face of Les Droites via the 'Ginat' route.

The initial ice slope was in good condition with good neve/snow ice. However, higher up the crux pitch was too thin to climb resulting in a difficult and time consuming mixed pitch.

It appears that more snow is forecast in the next few days, which may mean the end of the good autumn climbing conditions...