A month in Chamonix climbing and mountaineering in the Birthplace of high altitude mountaineering.  Leaving the Aiguille du Midi station we headed for the Cosmiques Arete.  Nineteen days later a major section of this route collapsed, closing the route to those who would follow.  Mountaineering has its risks. (August 2018).

Your eyes are wide open but you cannot see what is coming next, you feel and hear the pressure building and your being reverberates with the immense noise, it hits you and you lean to take the force standing your ground and pressing hard against an invisible wall, one false step and it will take you over, spindrift lashes at exposed flesh and rucksack straps whip into your face. Snow is moving, picked up and deposited in wave like formations, sastrugi sculptures, the visible carvings of the wind. Face burning and pinching with cold, eyes watering, your breath is sucked away making speaking impossible against the noise and lack of oxygen. (Field notes, 17 November 2016)

I am heading to the Lagangarbh Hut for a long overdue fix of Scottish Winter. With a fine heritage the Lagangarbh hut sits a the foot of one of the Highland’s finest mountains Buachaille Etive Mor.  I can feel the sting of spindrift already…