Bid our farewells to the Mt Blanc view from the terrace this morning, bought our last pain au chocolates and hit the road. By evening, we were on the train through the tunnel and more than a few hours later, arrived at Fort Martin (note to self – best to stop just north of Dover… Read more

As promised, the rain poured down in the valley, but we were fine with that. Our final full day, was spent doing some of the things that we’d been meaning to do for the last month – namely, strolling the streets, having coffee at ‘Moody’s Coffee Bar’ and generally watching the world go by.  And… Read more

I don’t think that we could have fitted much more into our penultimate day in the valley. We started off with a 350m long route up the slabs at Le Mottets. It’s been a while since Clare and I climbed a long route together and it was great fun swinging leads and getting high up… Read more

Did a few routes at Les Gaillands in the morning as rain was forecast to arrived by midday. We had a few spots, but nothing major materialised.  However, I soon discovered that my body was way too tired to be hauling itself up steep, busy cliffs, so we beat a retreat to a nearby bakery… Read more

In our tired state last night, we had made an unrealistic plan, which only came clear once we’d walked out of the cable car station at Plan Praz. We needed a new objective, so chose to climb the only route left in the area that I’d not done yet. It was frustrating, but sitting at… Read more

I last crossed the enormous Emmoson Dam, on skis during the winter of 2004/5 and have a photo similar to this one in the Office at The Cottage. In the winter shot, I’m sitting on the railings, casually drinking from a thermos flask, with snow covering half the railings. Older and wiser, I had no… Read more