La Grave...part 1

On Saturday 12 January Ron, Ian and I arrived in La Grave hopeful that we would find plenty of ice to climb on and good conditions for skiing. Lat year was warm and there was ice to be found only on the higher routes. This year the snow was falling heavily so it was difficult to see just what routes were good but all the fresh snow gave us a great day skiing at the nearby village of Les Chazelet.

Ian went for another day skiing again at Les Chazelet and Ron and I headed off to climb Le Pylone (I, 3) We could see other climbers on the route from our apartment window so waited till a bit later in the morning so we would be the last. It was good climbing though the top pitch, my lead, was steeper than I remembered from our previous visits. We were intrigued to find that one long abseil with 60m ropes took us from the top belay right down to the bottom.

All in all a promising start to the trip.