Stage 4: Last but not Least!
Do you remember?
Last year, we had tried to ascend the Domes de Miage, and had to give up in the middle of a snow storm... How disapointing...
This year, I really wanted to try again, and Elise agreed to join! In addition to last year's Geoffroy and Nicolas; Elise, Richard, Beatrice and Max joined.
Violaine was getting bored after climbing the Domes twice in a month. ;-)
Location: Domes de Miage, Les Contamines, France
Details of climb: 2 days of alpine climbing, the first day being a long hike to the Conscrits hut (+1400m) and the second day being the alpine climb itself (PD level), complete traverse of the ridge until the Aiguille de la Berangere, down to the hut and back to the valley floor (+1000m, -2400m)
Comments: Once again, a very nice ascent. Plus it is a bit of a legendary summit from me since it is one that we see perfectly from our chalet, every day of fine weather... This time we were lucky with the weather, as the temperature varied from warm to hot. We didn't know how far we had hiked the previous year (because of the fog), and discovered this year that we had been only to the foot of the col des Domes before we had decided to return.
This year, with rop team mates (Geoffroy and Nicolas), we steadily hiked on the glacier to the col, where we stopped, and then decided to ascend the first Dome. I was expecting something easy as Violaine didn't mention anything difficult. But in fact, we had to back track after only 100m as the narrow rigde was almost completely made of ice (as opposed to snow), and slopes on both ends looked dramatically steep! It was pretty scary.
So, back at the col, we waited for the other team rope, had a rest, and started to climb the second dome. That was steep, but snowy, hence easy. We took a couple more pictures, then continued on the ridge, past the 3rd and 4th dome. We were getting a bit tired, but until then there was no technical difficulty.
Then we started the descent to the col de la Berangere and it became really more difficult: steep slope and very icy in places, we had to be careful at every step.
It was then on to a mixt arete, up to the Aiguille de la Berangere's rocky summit. After that, it was an easy descent, we could remove the crampons, run and slide in the snow and Geoffroy pulled us on his rope: we could not stop him as he was running at full speed and the snow was to stop to use the ice axe.
We got down to the valley later in the afternoon, after a loooong descent, where the only technical part was the downclimbing of the newly installed ladders leading the Tre La tete glacier.
Overall, a beautiful 2 day alpine outing, where everyone enjoyed themselves. My special congratulations to Elise who did not get scared at the icy slopes and passed the ladders exercise very well!
Geoffroy and Nico
First Dome
Second Dome
First Dome and Mont Blanc as seen from the second Dome (you can see Nicolas's fearless Alsacian friend on top of the first dome)
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