Col de Cristaux – Ross Hewitt Guiding

This Alpine trip was fantastic and covered a few areas, starting out in Les Ecrins in January we ice climbed and ski toured before moving North to Chamonix. There we spent one cold day at the end of January climbing the Swiss route on Les Courtes on squeeky neve. Then we headed East into La Valais to ski tour on the Breithorn and Monte Rosa areas, finally finishing off in the Chamonix area skiing some classics like Col de Cristeaux and the Armencettes.

La Grave Icefalls, Andy Benson on the Lead

Hey Fella!
The Davin Couloir and Les Agneaux

Quiet Day at the Hut in the Ecrins

Crux Pitch, Vallon Diable

Me After a Stunning Ice Route

The Benson Twins and Nick Wallis in the Ecrins

Nick Wallis above Col de Lauteret

La Verte and Les Drus

Heading off up the Swiss Routes on Les Courtes

Aiguille du Midi from Le Mont

Teams competing in the Mezzalama

Summit Ridge of the Breithorn

The Mezzalama Heading over Castor and Pollux

The Schwarze Glacier next to the Breithorn

The Matterhorn at Dawn from Monte Rosa

At the Monte Rosa Hut

Monte Rosa

Matterhorn

Couturier

Window Shopping in the Argentiere Basin. i.e. waiting on weather

Y Couloir

Col des Courtes

Col de Cristeaux

The NE on Les Courtes

Heading into the Conscrits

Me and the West Face of Mont Blanc

Ryler on Domes de Miage

Skiing down the Armencettes Ryler at the Argentiere Hut Alps 2005-77

Ryler, Wolfgang, Thomas, Jessica and Friends on Col de Cristeaux

Dawn on Mont Dolent

Mark Ryle on Col des Cristeaux and some Glacier Art

Old Skool, Argentiere Basin Steeps on Altitrails! Mark Ryle on Col des Cristeaux

Michelle has been wanting to go to Col de Cristaux for a while now so I’d been saving it up for a nice sunny spring day when things would soften up. We were joined by fellow Aberdonian climber-skiers Sandy Simpson and Andy Inglis a very social lap on this Chamonix Classic from the sunny right hand finish.

I was surprised to see a large team start up the face behind us when were we 3/4 of the way up. As things were softening up fast and I started to ski down towards them, they appeared quite distressed by the volume of sluff that the skiers on the (other) direct finish were sending down. Surely if you didn’t manage to get out of bed early enough to start with the others, you would question the wisdom of questing up a route knowing people will be skiing down and dislodging anything from 1 to 1000 Te of snow? Would you go onto a big ice route behind people without expecting to get a lot of ice in the face? A few years ago another team followed us up the ice route Omega on the Petit Jorasses. By the end both of them were bloodied and bruised from direct hits from falling ice. It certainly spoiled my day knowing that anything we dislodged was going to harm them to some degree.