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Back in Chamonix we rested up with Andy and Steph in Le Majestic, I was going spare at not being able to climb and Jools was looking for a break from the incessant cold. A plan formed, and I made a call. “Nicos, fancy joining me for a week of climbing in the Alps”

“Sure I’ll book a flight, when and where?” That’s what I like, no messing.

So I swapped Jools for Nicos at Grenoble and headed to La Grave.

We arrived on the afternoon of the first day, I was looking to get settled in but Nicos was raring to go, clutching his printouts from the net. We settled on the closest route that had been recommended, 60m of grade 3 ice, ‘Le Pylon’. The walk in, up the half-frozen turf was harder than the climb, but 2 pitches of mostly solid ice (melting rapidly) was more than I had touched in the last 2 weeks, so no complaining.

We wandered back via the Guides hut for some further information. It was so refreshing to hear someone actually willing you to climb. “Go do the Goullette du Cret on Le Râteau. I hear its ok, some guys backed off yesterday but you two should have a go”, (Gungho, nice). We chatted to one of the guides further, and settled on the Goullette for the next day.

Exiting the top of the telepherique at Col des Ruillans 3200m, we walked up the slope of the draglift before attempting to put on the snowshoes. Neither of us had ever used them before and thought best of attempting it in front of the restaurant, in full view of so many punters. No real drama’s though as long as you didn’t try running backwards. After gearing up below the burgshrung, I swam up the steep snow slope to the ice wall, it was hard as rock but took a screw belay lovely. Nicos made light of the mixed ground and then I linked the two ice fields in one 60m pitch, although really regretted leaving the cams with Nicos when setting the next belay. Two more steep snow slopes lead to the ridge and wonderful views into the next valley.

Day three we headed down the valley to climb a long waterfall ice route called La Colere du Ciel, few difficulties but with a fantastic 15m 90 degree ice wall at mid way. We romped up the route with little stress and walked down from the top.

Day four, as conditions were worsening on the ice in the valley we headed back up to Le Râteau, this time with the aim of doing the Voie Normal. In the morning whilst waiting for the lift, news reached us that ‘things were going off in Chamonix!’ We decided to nip up the Voie Normal then scurry down and jump in the truck and head north. We finished the route and were back down by 3.40, and by 4.10 we were on our way. As I drove, Nicos scanned the guidebook for possible routes. We bought food supplies and pizza on route and arrived at Chamonix at 9.00pm.

We fannied about a little in the morning buying gas and hiring snowshoes so we missed the first lift and caught the 9.30. Until that moment we were not really in a hurry as we were just going to do the Chere Coulouir on the Tacul pyramid, but as the lift ascended so did the spirit of adventure. “The forecast is good so lets just go for the Albinoni Gabarrou route” said Nicos. This is a more serious route, TD 600m exiting near the top of Mont Blanc du Tacul 4000m.

“OK we’ll stash the bivi gear on the Vallée Blanche and head straight to it.”

We knew we would be summiting in the dark, but were certain we could pick up the ordinary route to descend easily, and then stop in the Abri Simond hut for the night. Maybe we could do the Chere Couloir the next day?

We arrived at the Midi station on a mission, weaving between the Japanese tourists and their cameras, we made a beeline for the ice cave, via the toilets (nervous tension). Ignoring the obvious exposure of exiting down the snow arête, we overtook a party of skiers halfway down and rallied to the Vallée Blanche. In the whole stretch of whiteness there was only one tent pitched in a dugout snow hole, the obvious place to stash the bivi gear and food to be collected after the climb. I took a quick bearing off a feature and we snow-shoed it down the glacier, reaching the base of the route at 11.30.

As we started the 250m slog up the snow slope to the base of the ice pitches it was obvious to both of us that the previous four days routes had taken there toll on energy levels and the legs felt unusually heavy. Alternating the lead we still managed to cover the ground relatively quickly, making up time on some of the parties already on the route. There were three pairings in all on the climb who had either bivied at the base, or skied in off the first lift, but all of them only climbed as far as the top of the ice pitches and then rappelled down the route. By the time we reached the second ice pitch we were alone. Although according to our own plan we were still on schedule, the fact that all the other climbers had made such fast exits had spooked me a little and I fancied following suit, but Nicos was still confident in the plan, and I needed little persuasion for further adventure.

Still fairly tired we made steady progress up the ice, and exiting onto technically easier ground, the upper snow slopes tugged heavily at the reserves. Nicos rounded the right side of the couloir onto a snowy ridge that led to up and round the cornices to the finish. I was wary of fatigue and easy mistakes at this point and as the light was just starting to really fail, I reached for an energy gel.

“We’ll only be half an hour, you’ll be up in the next pitch” pushed Nicos, but things can be deceptive in the half-light and I needed some fuel.

I set off up the ridge feeling the increasing weight of the dragging rope, 60m on and the rope came tight not even half way to the finish, I set a belay in some nearby rock and brought Nicos up, he carried on through. When the rope ran out again I cut loose the belay and followed on moving together. We were on top at 6.30pm just as we expected, finishing our first major winter route within the guidebook time of 7-9 hours. There was very little jubilation, as both of us knew that only half the real job was done and that only when warm in the hut would we congratulate ourselves.

The original idea was to pick up the Normal route, but this involved a further 200m climb. We knew that there was also a route that people ascended on the left face of the Tacul, so we started traversing toward this instead, and soon found some faint old tracks. Further down and across the face I could see two head torches descending and thought ‘lucky bastards, must be on the normal route, they’ll be down in no time’. The face was steep and the snow was hard. At times we were forced to front point and dagger across steep faces above huge serracs, as we slowly picked out a route, weaving cautiously round the obvious crevasses. It was a more tiring descent than I had originally imagined, but both of us still felt we had some reserves to give. We soon came to an easy section and below I noticed that the other party were much closer. “Bonsoir”, I shouted. “C’est possible descender avec vous?” I knew that we would be welcome, as roped together as a four is much safer for all involved.

We closed in on the two guys, one French and one Bulgarian. The French climber then said “be careful, many crevasses round here”. It was the last thing I heard before the hollow cracking sound and the ground opened like a trap door. Everything went white. I had always thought of crevasses as dark places, but as the head torch bounced its light off the walls, it was like being dropped into some surgical theatre or shiny white morgue. The French climber behind said ‘it was like a bright white hole appeared and a beam of light shot out into the sky’. I checked myself “I’m OK, I’m OK, I’m OK”, I shouted almost triumphantly, nothing broken I thought. I noticed then, that I was lying on a thin snow bridge about 16 foot down, I felt its fragility and could see dark depths either side of me. I pushed the gravity of the situation and all the horrific crevasse stories to the depths of my mind. I gently pulled my second axe from my harness and swung for the wall of the crevasse. Easing myself up, I kicked in and felt the crampons bite the hard ice “I can climb out OK” I shouted. Nicos kept the rope tight, and I climbed. As I reached the top, I popped my head out and quipped to the French climber “There’s a crevasse here!” I sunk the shaft of one axe in the snow, pivoted out onto the slope beneath the crevasse, and clipped to the other guys rope. I was defiantly in numb mode as I proceeded to translate for Nicos, and direct him into position on the rope. We set off down the slope in our new roped party of four. I felt so much more secure and the pressure of any responsibility seemed to have lifted some. But that also chinked the armour a little, and as the reality of what could have happened, crept up from the deep place inside, the bottom lip started to tremble and eyes welled up. I fought back the emotion pushing it down, but it kept bubbling up, ‘don’t crack now, you’re not out of the shit yet’.

I could see a huge crevasse spanning the full width of the face ahead, bordered by massive seracs. The three of us held the tension on the rope as the Bulgarian inspected “we have two choices, jump or nothing”, but with a little further investigation a third option of a snow bridge just next to one of the seracs offered a passage, much to my relief (falling in crevasses now being much more of a reality to me!).

I was starting to feel worn down and the reserves were getting low when we were dealt the final blow. The torchlight disappeared into space and we were now standing at the top of what looked like a bottomless ice wall. It hadn’t really sunk in yet, but soon became clear as the Bulgarian turned and started down-climbing the face. Weary and tired, and having long since given over responsibility to the other climbers, I just turned around and followed suit. It was 70-degree hard glacier ice, front pointing all the way for 60-70m. I could sense Nicos was in the same mess as I was, but all we could do at that moment was follow suit. It was agonising when having to stop for each person to set pass, or remove a screw. The morning after, looking back, we both agreed, that had we have been on our own, we would have preferred to set a thread and abseil down the wall. Thankfully at the point I felt my calves would explode the angle eased off and we were on the ice debris at the base of the face.

At 8.30pm we were down and safe on the Vallée Blanche, I hugged the three of them and explained to the guys that we needed to collect out bivi stuff before heading up to the hut. Now we were out of any immediate danger the adrenaline fuel dissipated and the body started to waver. I remember staggering some as we set off in search of the bivi equipment. It was a clear night sky but with no moon, and it soon became obvious how limited the head torches were in the expanse of the Vallée Blanche. Despair started to fill us both at the prospect of not finding sleeping gear or food for the night. In desperation I cast off the rucksack and ropes and set to marching around the site. The compass bearing was useless as the reference sighting was no longer visible, and mentally things had also started to become a little hazy. The sense of defeat felt heaver than the rucksack as I began to trudge up to the hut.

Only now, with just 50m of climb to the hut, did I realise just how knackered we were. I shouted at Nicos to follow, stopping every 20 yards, then every 10, then 5 (Nicos thought that I was in fine form and was just stopping to wait for him!). At one point I lay down on the snow, just for a break knowing that it was stupid and that people had been through much worse, it was only for a moment. I was certain that I never wanted to experience anything like this again; I was going to get rid of my axes, screws and crampons and give up winter climbing altogether.

Finally, I sat down 5 yards below the hut on a boulder in the snow. I was desperate to scream ‘somebody come and help me, please’ but a little bastion of pride in the chest stifled the words. As Nicos caught up I made a final bid for the hut and wobbled through the doors. I dropped poles, rucksack and gear at my feet and put my face in my hands and cried with relief that it was all over. We shuffled in around the table, my whole body was fucked, another climber offered us some tea and I drank two small cups, but moments later my stomach cramped and I reached for a random saucepan and vomited up a litre of water. I knew I was cold and dehydrated, and I was so pissed off at loosing even more fluid that I found myself staring at the bowl of steaming liquid, willing myself to drink it. I couldn’t bring myself to, and handed the bowl to Nicos asking him to empty it. On return of the bowl, I filled it with snow and put it to melt on the stove, I was beyond caring about the little floaters remaining and emptied some packet soup into the mix, which actually looked more like sick than the sick had. We must have been a rare site for the other climbers in the hut, Nicos silent with head resting on the table, and me moaning and swearing. I managed to hold down some of the sick looking soup and finally had the energy to search for some bedding.

There were five brown woollen holey dirty blankets stuffed in one corner of the top bunk. I selfishly grabbed three and chucked aside two for Nicos (I discovered in the morning that someone else had taken them and left Nicos with none, he wore his down jacket and sandwiched his legs between two foam mattresses). My feet were so numb I wrapped them in one blanket and covered myself with the others. The Abri Simond hut is at 3000m and has no electricity or heating, oh, and has never been cleaned. The night was restless, and continuous readjustments to cover exposed parts kept me awake, it was good to feel the warmth returning to the feet.

In the morning the sun was shining through the windows and my feet had come back to life, all except one big toe, but I felt generally good again. From the hut it was easy to see the site where we left the bivi gear, even though the tent had gone, and I started to fantasize about the pack of soft buttered croissants left there, paying little regard to the chuffs gathered around the area. Nicos was up and we decide to fetch the stuff back to the hut to spend the day recovering. When we got close, the ever-present birds start to interest me more and I thought, ‘there must have been crumbs left out by the other climbers’. Only when we got close did I realise that the birds had eaten most of our stash of food including two tuna sandwiches, one packet of noodles, and eight buttered croissants.

We spent the rest of the day melting snow and eating food left in the hut by other climbers, I even had the energy to sort the gear and do a little cleaning. My big toe was still is a little numb, but I paid it little attention. The next morning, I actually felt more knackered than the previous day. We had planned to do either Chere Couloir or Cosmiques Arête, or even both, but at that moment I just felt like getting off the mountain. The wind was howling early and I began to wonder if the Midi lift was actually running. Nicos found an old pair of army issue telemark skis and had managed to fit them to his boots. I half imagined him skiing down the Mer de Glace with me dragging in snowshoes behind.

As the sun rose, the wind settled, and we packed the rucksacks (along with a generous bundle of rubbish from the hut, including several frozen poos) and headed up the Cosmiques Arête. Whilst not a difficult climb, the arête had some good exposed traverses, and with the extra weight in the sacks tending to unbalance tired legs, I had to admit to finding some parts a little tricky. At one junction, after lowering Nicos down a short 45-degree ice slope, I turned to down climb. As I kicked in the front points, I could feel an odd pain in the numb big toe, I thought ‘definitely going to loose a nail’ imagining a black bruised nail from five continuous days kicking ice. We took our time on the climb and had sandwiches overlooking the Tacul face. We also had the pleasure of watching an avalanche sweep down the ice wall we had climbed two nights previously (gave pause for thought, but probably less than for the climbers 20 yards away at the base of Chere Couloir).

Back at the truck, I finally liberated my feet and was greeted by a huge blister on my numb big toe. I’m rather perplexed by this; I’ve never had any previous problems with my boots. It took a little time however to put together the relative circumstances (cold/dehydration/fatigue/stupidity) and I began to wonder if it might not be frostbite. So, to pop, or not to pop, that is the question. We hooked up with Andy, and went out for a few beers. I’m introduced to Andy Parkin of gnarly climbing/painting/sculpture fame and show him my bigger toe. He’s relatively sure of the diagnosis and reassures me it will soon get a lot sorer, and definitely not to pop. The doctor in Argentier was in no doubt, and shows me pictures of black charcoal-like hands and feet. I’m now shitting myself as to what’s possibly to come, so I rang DB, a mate in the UK, who has a butchers on the Internet and tells me ‘everything’s going to be fine’ (that’ll do me). Even so, I need a rational for treatment, so here it is.

1. Low dose Aspirin (to thin the blood and improve circulation in damaged capillaries)

2. Peripheral Vasodilators (Improved perfusion of damaged tissue)

3. Homeopathic Arnica (because if anyone thinks it doesn’t helps with pain relief they should set up an experiment to prove it, and get multinational pharmaceutical money to fund it so they defiantly get the result they want)

4. Fever few herb (I’m sure mum said it helps in headaches and acts on blood circulation or something like that)

5. Aloe Vera Gel (Its really good for sun burn so I thought, my toes got a huge blister and sunburn causes blisters)

6. Cleaning daily with Chlorhexadine and dressing with Jelnet and Coform (because the doctor showed me pictures of black toes)

7. Wearing socks and sandals (because dad recommends it, not for frostbite, he just thinks its fashionable)

8. Drinking the occasional beer (apparently because a little alcohol thins the blood)

9. Drinking loads of water (because the beer makes me pee)

There will now be an unspecified interruption to the climbing log whilst I attempt to stop my toe falling off. The mere thought of putting it anywhere near a rock boot makes me clench

Click the toe for further photos, if your not squeemish or KT

Arrived in the gorge sans guide, however as anywhere in Morocco there was soon someone offering to sell me one. It turned out actually to be Hasan Mouhajir, one of the premier local climbers of the area. We went with him back to his house and in the usual Moroccan manner bargained over a price for the guide whilst dissolving our teeth in sugary tea. If I let you know that he asked me to tell other people we paid 300 dirham (30 Euro) for the hand drawn guide book, you can work out your own price with him if you ever need to. He did promise lifetime updates if you ever return so might yet be an investment.

We originally planned several days in the gorge but got distracted by the offer of some off-road driving. The area we did climb on was fantastic, brilliant friction and good moves, however the grades were definitely on the hard side. Graded more like Chillulia than Siriana. I led 5-6 single pitches of 30-35m at 5c-6a+ (more like 6a-6b+). Would definitely recommend bringing a 70m rope in the future and if multipitching, two 60m.

Due to time constraints and the hectic life of overland travel we had to miss out visiting Tafroute but I still needed to ‘feed the rat’ so we stopped off on route to Assa by a small but promising crag. From a distance the rock looked very broken and unstable but on closer inspection was remarkably solid and very positive. There was no previous evidence of climbers and I would be surprised if anyone has before here as there was not much to go at but the line we did pick was of wonderful character and on perfect rock. The difficulty was definitely below severe and the protection bountiful and overall grade of Very Difficult likely but non the less extremely satisfying to put up a new route on a virgin crag in traditional style. We split the route in two pitches of 40m and 50m with a crows nest belay spot on the arête. The only down side was that it was so cold.

As the itch to climb again was rising we were driving along from Aleg to Tidjikja and I saw a beautiful array of boulders. Now its possible to boulder on almost any thing and to a casual observer there seems to be no reason why any place could be much better than another, as long as there were problems to do. But I feel that bouldering is greatly enhanced if there is a natural beauty and asthetic to an area. Fontainebleau has it, as does Stanage Plantation, some areas just call out as bouldering venues and this site drew me in.

Boulders rested on a raised mound in the natural centre of a small valley banked with rocky outcrops. In the centre was a huge and enigmatic boulder with beautiful overhanging highballing problems on both sides and easy down climb. The rock was solid and holds varied from tight crimps to massive jugs. Some of the landings were a little rocky, but clearing a few ground rocks would greatly improve things. The centre boulder was then surrounded by at least a dozen others, all offering fantastic problems of any ability. I spent a couple of hours scratching the surface and found a few real gems. It's certainly a place I would recommend stopping by at, if you happen to be passing.

(location: main road between Moudjeria/Aleg & Tidjikja, Khang Acheft Pass, N18˚04.182, W12˚09.828).