Petit bargy, rock climbing on Pegase

A perfect day, climbing on an ace crag with a good pal... We were at a crag above the village of Mont Saxonnex ( la Clusaz, Grand Bornand). Pegase is a three star 6a route with some botls but mainly trad. From the ground upwards all the pitches are truly superb. Although some of the pitches seemed very stiff for 6a! Nevertheless, an exciting and most enjoyable adventure! The climb is on a steep limestone crag in this perfect setting
.

Erica climbing in ace form!

We made a slight route finding error but got back on line with a bold traverse!

Sports climbing, Machaby, Italy

With Erica we did a ten pitch route at Machaby today, ace weather, great climbing!

Erica leads the crux pitch!

Such fantastic rock, a memorable day....The climb was named Tika Saab.

Rope Access in France

I was assessing at Absolutio (Industrial Rope Access) in the Ardeche on Saturday. Its a very impressive set up with split level flooring which is great for training and assessing. The centre is manged by IFMGA mountain guide and IRATA member Bertrand Frayon. As part of the training course the candidates get the opportunity to abseil down a 180 m rock cliff to the river bank.The split level training area means that the candidates practise the skills at height but are always closley supervised by their instructors.

The company logo and web site!

The big abseil!

Chamonix days

Wonderful life!

Chamonix, Mont Blanc

As always, lucky us, the weather improved and we have had an ace time in the mountains..... Elsie on the Cosmiques Arete this morning.

Elsie climbing.

Dani, Alaisdair and Elsie abseiling yesterday!

Finale, Italy

Really poor weather in Chamonix during the earlier part of this week encouraged us to go bolt clipping at Finale, Italy. It was ace! Alisdair leading an interesting pitch.

Elsie climbing on the most superb limestone!

Dani enjoying the rock!

Breithorn and Pollux

Windy on Pullux this morning but Matt and I enjoyed it!

Matt outside the Ayas hut (Italy) yersterday afternoon.

Matt and I on the summit of the Briethorn yesterday.... Matt was sitting behind his computer in New York a couple of days ago, Swiss Air got him to Geneva and here he is on his first 4000 meter Alpine Peak.... Good effort!

An ace day on the Paridiso

Fantastc weather, zero wind, clear and kind of freezing on the summit today with Jonathan and Andrew.

People everywhere!

Passy

A rainy day here in Chamonix, we were supposed to be on Mont Blanc but the conditions of the Goutier route via the Grand couloir are dangerous with rock fall, this plus the rainy weather is not going to allow an ascent . The wise, sensible and prudent choice was to do a via ferrata at Passy today and we are thinking about heading over to Italy for a couple of days!

" The mountains are there forever, just make sure you are...." Don Whillans said that!