Aiguille d'Entreves (16.08.2017)

The morning after we’d been up the Dent du Geant was spent doing the traverse of the Aiguille d’Entreves since there was some afternoon rain in the weather forecast we’d seen the previous evening. The traverse is supposed to be a half day outing from the Torino hut, so this seemed like a good option before heading back down to Courmayeur and driving back to Evolene. We took a later breakfast this morning at 6am, although I didn’t really notice the extra few hours sleep since I got woken up by an unexpected cough halfway through the night and didn’t sleep much afterward. It was noticeably windier this morning and once we set off after breakfast it became clear that a bit of new snow had fallen during the night! The Dent du Geant was looking whiter than the previous day so the ridge traverse was going to prove interesting if it was covered in loose new snow.

The approach to the start of the Aiguille d’Entreves was a slightly longer glacier plod than for the Dent du Geant, and the route took us first up to the somewhat insignificant Col des Flambeaux before we descended westwards down the glacier, passing by the Aiguille de Toule and then gradually weaving out way around a network of crevasses and gradually heading southwards between the Tour Ronde and Aiguille d’Entreves to gain the Col d’Entreves. It was a bit chilly here with more shade than sun, so it felt relatively pleasant to reach the start of the ridge where the sun was actually shining and get warmed up a bit before embarking on the traverse. The sun-facing side of the ridge was pretty dry but there was visibly more new snow still lying on the side of the ridge which hadn’t seen much sun yet. Nevertheless we decided to start without crampons on and then see how the conditions progressed further along the traverse.

© Hannah Vickers

© Hannah Vickers

© Hannah Vickers

© Hannah Vickers

© Hannah Vickers

© Hannah Vickers

© Hannah Vickers

© Hannah Vickers

© Hannah Vickers

© Hannah Vickers

© Hannah Vickers

© Hannah Vickers

© Hannah Vickers

© Hannah Vickers

© Hannah Vickers

Fortunately the traverse started with relatively easy scrambling terrain so we made our way a little distance along the ridge even though it was in places quite slippery because of the new snow. But around 15 minutes along the ridge it was obvious that putting the crampons back would probably be a good idea. I put on a thick pair of gloves at the same time! The first slightly awkward move presented itself in the form of a short downclimb on the left side of the ridge to reach a gap, which I am convinced would have been more straightforward to do without thick gloves and crampons. This was then swiftly followed by a big pull up to gain the crest of the ridge again. More exposed bits of traversing followed before the climb up the highest point on the ridge which was nicely dry and free of snow, so at least we got to do some nice climbing on dry rock without crampons :) From the summit there was some more slightly exposed moves around some spikes to get to the start of the descent down the west/north side of the ridge, first over some slabby rocks then down and around to a flat point on the ridge. From here there was only about 10 minutes more easy scrambling on the sunnt side of the ridge to reach the end of the traverse. Plus there were great views of the Dent du Geant from here! Some downclimbing and an absseil over a bergshrund got us down to a gentle snow ridge again and from here it was just a matter of plodding carefully down and westwards towards the main ‘trail’ we’d walked in the morning on the approach to the climb. It was pretty satisfying to know we only had a short slog back up to the Col des Flambeaux before getting back to the Torino hut!

I guess it was a reasonably fun traverse, but doing it while feeling 75% asleep sort of made it a little less enjoyable. But it was a good use of the morning and we could enjoy a good lunch at the Torino hut before getting the lift back down to Courmayeaur :)