Italy was a really cool place - campsites with swimming pools, really cheap and efficient public transport and nice people. The mountains looked really cool - all between 2000 - 3000 metres with mad spires and stuff that looked really cool to climb. Unfortunately the climbing there was very scary indeed - due to loose rock so we didn't do any climbing of note in Italy. We did so two Via Ferrata's - getting up to 3004 and 3025 metres. We also spent four nights sleeping in some kindly old man's barn at over 2000 metres.

We left Italy early - after 1 and a half weeks and headed for France where things started to look up. We went to Ailefroide straight away. That's the place where the Irish Alpine meet was on. We got there on a Saturday and it was really cool because there were bolted climbs about 20 metres from where we pitched the tent. The campsite only cost 59 quid for 3 weeks so that was even better. On Sunday we got up and walked the 20 metres over to the crag and started climbing. The bolts were very close together so it was dead safe. We did a really nice four pitch route. It was really weird climbing as there were hardly any hand holds and it was all in your feet. It took me two pitches to get some sort of a grip on the climbing but after that it was cool. I lead the last pitch which was excellent. The sun was shining, the bolts were plentiful and the climbing was awesome.

That evening we went over to look at a big route called Fissure d'Ailefroide - a nice 9 pitch climb that followed a massive crack. When we got to the bottom of it we couldn't see where it started so we went over to another small crag nearby and tried a route there. I did the first pitch and was going along grand until the last move which was very committing. There was nothing at all for your hands and you just had to work you feet up and go for it. After a few attempts I got it and was rather pleased with myself. Declan tried the next pitch which was supposed to be easier but bottled out of it as the bolts were further apart on this crag and the climbing was very tenuous. I was hanging on my belay for ages and my ankle was hurting just a bit so I was a bit worried about it but it didn't really give me any more trouble throughout the holiday. Anyway we abseiled off that climb and went home with the intention of doing the Fissure the next day. Unfortunately it rained solidly for the next two days. We were tent bound for two days. I spent most of the time watching the rain coming in through the outer sheet and running down the inner sheet - very interesting and highly recommended. When it finally stopped raining I wanted to give the Fissure a day to dry out so we went to another crag and did some very nice single pitches.

The next day we were finally going to do the Fissure. We got to the bottom of the climb and Declan lead the first pitch. It took him quite a while as there were no bolts and he had to put in all his own gear. At this stage I was getting a bit worried and thinking that I wouldn't be able to climb if there weren't bolts. Declan finally set up a belay and I started up after him - got the gear off him at the belay and started climbing. Facing me was a dripping, slimy overhanging chimney with a bolt about half way up it. My first thought was to clip the bolt but I had to climb up a bit to get it. This I finally did and quickly clipped the bolt and hung on it while I tried to figure out how the hell I was going to get up this thing. After jamming myself into the chimney and aiding off a few more bits of in situ gear I finally managed to get up and reach the belay. I had found out that I really like chimney climbing. Declan seemed to get all the crap pitches on the climb as the next two pitches that I lead had chimneys on them. They look really impressive but are actually really easy to climb up as you can either bridge on both sides of the chimney of just wedge yourself right in and wriggle up. The last pitch that I lead, the second last pitch of the climb was the crux. It involved some nice climbing up to an overhang, then a traverse right under the overhang with the help of a dodgy in situ sling. After that the climbing was easy but the rope drag was appalling. There were loads of in situ pegs so I was just clipping them and then dragging the rope up. I was well pleased to get to the belay. It was hard work belaying Dec up. We got to the top after about 5 and a half hours which I thought was pretty good. We abseiled all the way back down - 6 long abseils off nice in situ bolts.

Anyway, after we did the fissure we took a day off. Dec kind of wanted to climb the next day but I didn't. I like to take time to savour the climb rather than just dashing off to do as many as possible. It does make sense to climb when the weather is good though but I just wasn't up for climbing that day. We planned on doing an 11 pitch slab route the next day. We thought that we would get up really early and be one of the first on the route. We got there at about 8:30 and on our way up to the climb saw 7 people ahead of us. We had to queue at the start. Dec lead the first pitch and I was up next. I lead the next two pitches in one. The climbing was quite bold even if it was on bolts as they were well spaced. Once I got to the belay it was madness. There were people all over the place. People climbing above us, below us and on top of us. It was horrible and as soon as Dec got up to the belay we both decided that it was no fun and abbed off the climb. It was a shame really as I would have liked to do it but it was crap climbing with people all over the place. After that on our way home we bumped into Eoin and Kev. It was so nice to have different company for a change. They helped us move our tent and all our gear down to the part of the campsite where all the Irish were staying. We met Robbie Fenlon and he told us that our Alpine course would be starting in the morning at 8:30 or something like that. After that we went climbing with the lads and spent quite a while trying some really hard climb that only Kev could make any progress on.

I was just about to start a three day introduction to Alpinism course. We met up with our guide, John Cousins early on Sunday morning. He turned out to be an excellent guy all round and the 135 pounds that the course cost was well worth it. We headed off to the Glacier Blanc with him and two others - Jeff and Heidi. We spent the day just walking around on the glacier getting used to using crampons and doing a bit of ice climbing. All the time JC would be telling you stuff about Alpinism. His big thing is to go light, not bringing anything that you don't need and then to move at a pace that you could maintain for hours without rest. Everything he said turned out to be bang on and we used it quite a bit on our subsequent outings. The next two days of the course involved doing a mountain route. JC wanted us to stay in a hut but myself and Dec wanted to bivvy as that is what we would be doing on all the other routes as it was cheapest. It turned out that he couldn't get in touch with the hut people so we had to bivvy. He got us to cut down everything that we were carrying. We left one ice-axe and the helmets behind. I would have been in favour of bringing the helmets and JC later admitted that it was a mistake to leave them behind but we never really needed them on the route and I felt safe without one. Then we headed off up a well defined track to the bottom of the route. It was basically a long hot slog. We did a bit of cravasse rescue stuff before we found a nice bivvy spot and I proceeded to spend the evening eating and drinking. It was really cool just taking it easy at the bivvy and watching the sun go down. The mountains looked fantastic. During the night I heard an aweful lot of stone-fall and avalanches. Our bivvy was miles away from where all that was happening but it was interesting to hear just how unstable all the mountains are. We set the watches for 4am and watched the stars come out. I had my thermal top, buffalo jacket and Jack Murphy piece of shit sleeping bag to keep me warm. It turned out to be quite a mild night and I got some good sleep before I woke up at four. We got ourselves together and were on the road in under an hour. Needless to say it was still dark but we didn't need headtorches as the moon gave us all the light we needed. I was really enjoying myself walking in the moonlight and then I looked behind me to see a stream of headtorches bobbing along behind me. There must have been about 30 of them and it was a bit disappointing to be on such a busy route. It was cool though as we were scrambling over sections of rock in the dark and then later when it got a bit bright moving roped up over easy rock. Once we got over the rock it was a long snow plod all the way to the top. JC, Jeff and Heidi were roped together and myself and Dec were moving separately roped up. We got to the summit (3805m) sometime around 11. That is quite late and we paid for it on the way down. The sun had been on the snow for quite a while and it was soft and sticky. The crampons kept on getting balled up with snow so we slipped and slid our way back down. We took a bit of a rest at the bivvy and collected the gear that we had left behind before heading on down. Once we were over the rock sections on the way down we all headed off at our own pace. I headed down with thoughts of orange juice, going to the toilet and taking off my boots all spurring me on. There is nothing quite like taking off you boots having plodded along stoney trails for hours.

After that success I was happy to take a days rest and relax a bit but Dec had other ideas. It was his birthday so the next day we headed off to do another route - the Traverse of the Pelvoux. Like the other route it was graded PD which is relatively easy - in fact almost as easy as it gets in the Alps. Because it was a traverse i.e. we were not going up and coming back down the same way it was a bit more involved. So once again the lovely afternoon found us toiling up the stoney track for a few hours, past the Pelvoux hut and on for another half an hour or so to a nice bivvy spot. It was straight into the sleeping bags, on with all the clothes and start eating. Then a few hours sleep and we were up at 2:40am. We got ourselves together which involved putting on harnesses, tying bootlaces and roping up. This sounds quite simple but at that hour of the morning it is a difficult proposition. At 3:20 we hit the road. We went across two patches of snow without crampons as there was quite a bit of rock to be crossed just after them and putting on and taking off crampons would take too much time. So once again we found ourselves scrambling over easy rock in the moonlight and then on over some scree to where the real snow began. On the way up we noticed a nice high bivvy spot that would allow us to have a bit of a sleep in if we were ever doing this route again. It was still dark when we reached the glacier and we put on our crampons and roped up at the edge of it. It was quite cold but I was quite happy moving in just my thermal top and trousers. We had to ascend the Coolidge Couloir. This is a steepish couloir of snow of about 300 metres. It was in good condition and we made good progress up it and were well ahead of the crowds behind which was nice. We reached the summit of the Pelvoux at 6:45 just as it was getting fully bright. Then we had to complete the most difficult part of the route which was the descent down some glacier whose name I cannot remember. It turned out to be quite easy as we were basically just following a track that had been made by the previous days crowds through all the crevasses. It was easy going and we were flying it. We did one short abseil and then were on the bottom of a fifty metre abseil when Dec decided that he was completely fucked and could not help with anything. That was just what I needed to hear having just found out that the rope was stuck on something 50 metres above me. I scrambled back up and managed to pull the rope through without having to go all the way up and then climbed back down. Dec wanted to just sit down and go to sleep or something but I was anxious to get past the last set of ice cliffs before we slowed the pace. So we moved off again with Dec moving at a fraction of the pace that he had earlier in the day. After a few more abs we were back on easy enough ground and were able to unrope and move down at an easy pace. Near the very end the route finding is a bit tricky as it passes through a bit of a jungle hanging on the side of the mountain. I was quite tired by that stage so it was not what I wanted. After lots of messing around we found the way down and all the luxuries of the campsite beckoned.

After that route we had arranged to do a route with Eoin, Joss and Kevin. Dec was sick so he stayed at home. It was to be Barre des Ecrins- the only mountain over 4000 metres in the region. We had quite a long walk in as the bivvy was well over 3000 metres. We roped up as a group of four and I was well impressed with the way we moved. We reached the bivvy spot without too much trouble and then Joss decided that sleeping on the glacier was preferable to sleeping on the rocks at the side of the glacier. So we bedded down and Kevin was nice and snug as he has a monster sleeping bag. He was soon fast asleep. It was another nice evening and we had a deadly view of the route that we were doing and everything looked rosy. We had decided to start dead early as the route was all snow so it would be nice to be off it before it got too much sun. So we got up at 2am and were just emerging from our sleeping bags when it started pissing rain. We packed up quickly and got ready to go down. Joss had done something weird with his torch and his batteries had fallen and he couldn't find them so he had no light as he was sleeping away from the rest of us. I went over to sort him out and told him to take the batteries from his camera and put them in his torch and he was soon motoring again. Then I went back up to our bivvy spot and packed up the rest of my stuff and got the lads roped up and everything ready to go. We all moved down to where Joss was sleeping and had to wait quite a while for him as he had put on his crampons before putting on his harness and was in general disarray. It is very important to put all your gear on in the right order in the morning - boots, harness, crampons, bag and then rope up. Anyway we finally got going with Joss leading and me at the back. The snow had not improved at all over night and you could hear quite a bit of movement coming from the direction of the route so retreat was the only option. We were soon back down onto rock then so we were able to unrope and move seperately down the rock. It was still pitch dark as there wasn't a great moon. I was walking behind Eoin and saw him tripping up a little. I promptly did exactly the same thing only I managed to twist my knee and fall down completely. After a few minutes I was moving again but the knee was a bit sore. We soon reached a much better track and it was starting to get a bit light. Kevin steamed on ahead and myself and Eoin steamed after him and we left Joss for dust. He was on safe easy ground and only had to follow a big obvious track to get home so I was happy to leave him behind. We raced down and were back at the campsite at 7 in the morning. We met up with Connor Burns who had also come down because of the crap conditions and went for tea. It was nice to be back down but a bit of a shame that we didn't get the route done.

It rained solidly for the next three days. It was very miserable just sitting around looking out at the rain and seeing a little tickle of a stream turn into a raging torrent and eating up the ground around it. The weather was a bit dodge and I was talking to one of the more experienced people at the meet and he said that the next route we wanted to do (the Metrier Couloir on the Pelvoux) would take a few days to clear up. I was resigned to just doing some rock route when I bumped into the guide JC and asked him about doing the route. His advice was just to go up and have a look at it and to come down if it was crap. Better to try it and fail then to just stay low and do rock routes. We had arranged to leave at 5pm for the bivvy but myself, Kev and Eoin were off trying some mad hard single pitch climb - I think it was French 7-something. I was well impressed with myself when I managed to clip the first bolt but I couldn't manage to get the rope through the extender so Kev had to do this for me and I tried again. After making very little progress Kev had a shot and did really well clipping four or five bolts and getting almost to the top. Eoin had a shot at it after that and all this meant that I was late getting back to the campsite and we didn't get going to the bivvy until after 6. It was a nice slog up to the bivvy, which was at about 3200m and it was dark when we got there. I got all my clothes on and into my sleeping bag but it was still absolutely freezing and I barely got a wink of sleep all night. The fact that we had gone so high the night before meant that we could have a lie in the next morning until 4am. It was mad because there we were with our headtorchs getting ourselves together when all the crowds who were doing the Pelvoux and who had started off below was started veering off the track and coming towards us. They were like moths attracted to our lights. That is one of the funny things about the Alps, most people just follow the person in front of them and hope for the best. We were soon on our way and our route was just a few hundred metres to the left of the Coolidge Couloir, which you ascend if you want to do the Pelvoux. We saw these two guys below us and I was sure that they were heading to do the same route as ourselves and I was kind of anxious to keep ahead of them and be first on the route so I wouldn't have to deal with crap sent down by climbers above me. After a while they realised that they had chosen the wrong people to follow and went back towards the Coolidge Couloir. Once we got to the bottom of the route I reckoned that it looked dead easy and it turned out to be easy enough. We pitched the first 5 or 6 pitches and had perfect ice so it was nice easy going. Then just after we had decided to start moving together it started to get a bit trickier. I was down below and Dec came across a lot of powder snow. He started excavating and sent down loads of that powder snow in my direction. He was a good 45 minutes getting through that section by which time I was freezing. As soon as he could set up a belay he did and I got moving. Once I got up to where he was having the problems I saw why it had taken him so long. The snow was completely crap and the going was precarious. I was on the next pitch which was rock and ice. I was going to leave both my axes with Dec and just try and climb up the rock but he said to take one and I was glad I did as I moved up and the rock thinned out. I clipped an old piton which was my only piece of protection for about 20 metres and then climbed off the rock and onto the ice. I was one happy camper when I reached the top. Then we had another plod down. It was an excellent climb and quite easy because apart from the top section the snow was in really good condition.

After that we moved on to Chamonix. We managed to get a lift with the guide JC as he was also going there. That was dead handy as he delivered us and all our gear to the campsite. We stayed at the Moliasses in Chamonix which was nice enough and cost about 4:50 a night. When we arrived in Chamonix we heard that the weather had been crap for the previous ten days and it wasn't looking good when it started raining the day we arrived. I saw a weather forecast which said that the weather was going to be good for the next 3 days so I suggested that we go straight up and do a route the next day. Chamonix is a really cool down and there is a nice vibe going around the place there. I enjoyed just walking around the town and soaking up the atmosphere. We got ourselves organised the next day and paid 25 quid to get the cable car to the Aiguille de Midi. Once there we emerged and descended a sharp arete into the Vallee Blanche where we got excellent views of the whole area. It is amazing just how white the Vallee Blanche is and we were to find out more about this the next day. We made our way to the bottom of our route - the North Face of the Tour Ronde - a 350m climb. There we dug a little hole on the glacier and proceeded to lie down and shiver for the night. Once again it was freezing cold as we were on a glacier and at well over 3000 metres. It was a really cool bivvy though as the views were amazing. In front of us were had our route and behind was the Grand Capucin. The next morning we got up at 4am and it was freezing so I though that the route would be in excellent condition. We got moving but not before a group of two and a group of three got on the route before us. We had roped up at the bivvy and started on the route. The first thing was to cross a bergschrund which was quite easy and then we moved together up the face until we reached where the route narrows into a gully. There was no protection whatsoever on the first bit of the route as the snow was all crap and powdery so the first bit of protection we got was when the route narrowed into the gully. After that we started pitching off rock belays which was nice as the snow was in really crap condition. It was just powdery shite and I was getting no purchase at all with my axes, I was just moving up on my feet and hoping that they would hold. After two or three pitches during which I was bombarded intermittently with spindrift we reached a point where we could go left or right. We choose the right option and Dec lead this pitch and found himself a nice rock belay at the top. During my seconding of this pitch I really needed to go for a shit but couldn't find anywhere suitable so I continued on and lead the next pitch. I was leading up a huge snow face and saw that we should have taken the left option on the previous pitch. This meant that I was in the middle of nowhere on a face of shit powder snow and I could just see a rock in the middle of it that I might be able to reach. I was about two metres from this rock and had no gear in at all as it was just powder snow when Dec called up that I was out of rope. I asked him to take apart his belay and start moving up with me which he swiftly did. I reached the rock and cleaned out some snow from around it and put a sling around it but it wouldn't really catch properly. I put another sling on and kicked myself two footholds and belayed Dec up on a really shit belay. As soon as he got up I was anxious that he get moving again as I really needed a crap and I had a really dodgy belay. He traversed the rest of the way over to the left and found a good rock belay. I was seconding up and nearly shit myself as climbing is not a good thing to have to do if you are in dire need of a crap. I reached the belay and went straight on up and around a rock and took a very satisfying crap indeed. The funny thing is that this belay point is probably the only place on the whole face where you could take a dump. After that I was feeling much better and lead the next pitch up to a nice peg belay. At this stage there was quite a bit of brittle ice and it tended to shatter rather than give you a good hold. After eight pitches of powder snow and brittle ice we finally reached the top of the snow slope and from there we moved together over easy rock to the top. I wasn't even that pushed to go all the way to the top as I was a bit knackered but I went to the top anyway. It was worth it as there were excellent views of the Brenva face of Mont Blanc from there. After that we descended. It had taken us 7 hours to do the route and the guide book time was 4. That is pretty slow but I reckon that that just shows how bad the conditons were. Also the fact that only 5 people other than ourselves did the route would seem to indicate that it was out of condition. After that we had a long walk through the Vallee Blanche back to the cable car at the Aiguille de Midi. It was a really sunny day and as I said before the Vallee is very white. I had a bit of a beard by that stage but anywhere that was not covered by beard including lips and up my nose got burnt to a crisp. Dec, who had no beard looked like he had been in a fire.

After all that excitement I was pretty burnt out and was ready to go home. When I saw that the weather was going to turn crap again for the foreseeable future I decided to leave for home. A bed, good food and laziness beckoned and I embraced them.