That’s Just The Way It Is

What’s with the radio silence? Where is the stream of blogs and trip reports this year huh? Who? What? Where? Why?-and importantly why not!?

No one is clairvoyant no matter how many bars they visit to gather their data from. Trying to work out a pattern of winter weather is like trying to guess a dogs name to call it over. I’ve heard a lot of barking, but it is what it is. This year so far in Chamonix has been undeniably exceptional- in every sense of the word. Huge but infrequent storms, extremes in warm and cold temperatures and sustained high pressures. The trick is the usual one- keep an open mind, be ready to go, and accept that not every day- or week, is going to be your best ever. If it comes to it, dust off the BBQ and bike, and enjoy the fact that it hasn’t been grey for 3 months. Easier said than done when you know how good this area can be when the stars align, but c’est la vie.

I’m not surprised there is little in the way of big route reports and grand adventures. Climbing has been, in truth, just not happening this year. Yes there are some routes that have been snuffled out by the strong and determined, mainly dry tooling and loose rock avoidance. But for the gully ice and mixed it has never come good. It is a shame, we look forward to it every year. I managed to squeeze a great dry route in with Tim (Star Acadamixte ED1 6 240m)  and recently went to try an idea of a new route with Mike but it was so dry and loose we barely touched the difficult climbing. Thankfully the skiing when these storms have come through has been really good. No particularly big lines, just feel good powder and lots of trees which is a fun hand to have been dealt any day of the week.

On paper it’s not personally been a great one, Patagonia flights cancelled by the agent 2 weeks before the trip (NEVER book through Go To Gate just read the countless reviews online), friends getting injured, conditions sketchy, skis stolen. But taking a more relaxed approach to it all has been good, and what I/we have done has been pure fun.
April and May can feed the hungry 5000 after a winter of fasting so it’s definitely not over yet. I’ve enjoyed making some short videos so if you need a bit of motivation or are stuck indoors take a look below (youtube appears to have glitched the start of a few of them due to the music but it stops after a short while). And check out my youtube channel for older ones. Enjoy!