Beautiful Verdon

After over a month in Chamonix we finally bid a sad farewell.

We've had such a lovely time in the Chamonix valley walking and climbing.

We also caught up with some more UK visitors that had been on the Le Tour walk.

Stewart and George have been incredibly lucky with only 1 day of rain.

As we leave Chamonix it has been raining for a few days and snowing in the mountains.

The snow follows us onward to our journey towards the Ercin valley and we arrive in Ailefroide on a rainy cool evening and park up for the night.

The village of Ailefroide is like a forgotten place with very few people around and everything boarded up.

Apparently it's now the off season and it gets busier  in height of summer and the ski season.

Autumn is definitely upon us with cooler mornings and evenings and leaves starting to fall in forest.

We use the next day to recce the routes we wish to do here. Without a guide book for the area and just going on information from websites its best to get it right.

The following morning we head out for the day of granite multi-pitch climbing which we both enjoy. Then it's a day of rest a walk up to the glacier Blanc and another awesome multi-pitched route before move on to slightly warmer area of Céüse near Gap.

The view from Ceuse

The high extensive ridge line of Céüse looks like a proud fortress. A massive rock face running along hillside.

We stay in the nearest campsite about 1 hour walk from the crag. This is our first campsite stay in months preferring to stay in quieter places that campsite just don't offer us.

Walking up to the crag you just help but be blown away by the limestone fortress.

 The climbing here is way out of my league! Lots in the 7 and 8 grades but we did manage a few in the 6 bracket.

Back to Verdon

We discuss going back to Verdon so for better or worse that's what we do.

It will be interesting to see how we do considering in the spring when we first came my Achilles injury was barely 6 months old.

Now we've have banked lots of routes around France, Italy and Switzerland.

Abseiling in Verdon