Struck by lightning on the Aiguille du Chardonnet - 12546ft (3824m) | ||||||||||||
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Introduction | ||||||||||||
lA warm up on the Aiguille de Triolet | ||||||||||||
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In August of 1994 John Coward and I were on an alpine climbing holiday. JC (as I know him) was climbing in the alps for the first time. He was keen to summit a few larger peaks and was relying on me, a more frequent visitor to the alps, to provide some suitable objectives. Having already spent a little time in the Zermatt valley, Switzerland, where we'd climbed the Brunegghorn we then turned our attentions to the Chamonix valley in France. On a clear day you can gaze directly to Mont Blanc's summit from the town. We planned to climb the easier Aiguille de Triolet (12,697ft / 3870m) as a warm up. This climb started with a trek up the huge Mer de Glace glacier into the heart of the Mont Blanc massif. We spent the night camped in the mountains high above the glacier, near the Couvercle hut (8852ft / 2698m). The Couvercle hut is superbly situated for spectacular views of Mont Blanc, the Chamonix Aiguilles and the famous north face of the Grandes Jorasses. The hut was also a good starting point for our climb the next day. About 4 am the next morning, as we trudged across the glacier to start the climb, my heart just wasn't in it. I can remember stopping on the ice not long after we'd set off. As I gazed to our objective for the day it seemed an uninspiring route. Dull snow slopes stretched away to a fairly insignificant looking bump on the distant ridge. My experience of big alps has been that they are arduous days out with an unhealthy dose of fear thrown in. On that day I didn't fancy the Aiguille de Triolet enough. I couldn't face it. I asked JC if he would mind us returning to the valley to go for a more alluring objective. He graciously agreed to go back. I think he was pretty pissed off about not even attempting the climb but he didn't really show it. I felt bad about it. We would lose another day just walking out from where we were. The Aiguille de Triolet is situated amidst some amazing mountain scenery and I guess JC would've been very happy to summit. Anyway, we turned round a mere 30 mins or so out of camp and headed back to the valley.
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