Richard and Christopher Bennitt, father and son, joined Kathy in August for some training and a climb of Mont Blanc.

Richard and Chris were new to climbing, but fit and keen!

We had scheduled a couple of days of training and acclimatization climbs before Mont Blanc. Our first day being a driving blizzard, we stayed mostly in the Torino hut, aside from some entertaining but brief forays into the storm. Day two dawned warm and clear, but much snow had fallen. Here we look over the top of the Aiguille de Toule, to the Dent du Géant and the Grandes Jorasses.

Our goal for the day was to climb the Aiguille d’Entrèves, normally a fairly straightforward climb, but another thing altogether covered in thick, new snowfall.

It was hard to be annoyed about the new snow though, it was so beautiful. Here the Drus, Aiguille Verte and Droites formed an exciting background. The Mer de Glace falls away below.

Looking up at the east face of the Mont Blanc du Tacul on the right, Mont Maudit on the left.

The Géant glacier forms the “headwaters” of the Mer de Glace.

Steep and exposed scrambling on the approach to the Gouter hut on Mont Blanc. Warm sunshine made a start on melting some of the heavy snow.

The next morning was windy and bitter cold. Cloud clung to the top thousand to fifteen hundred feet of the climb, coating us in rime ice…

...and depriving us of a summit view, but we were happy to be there anyway!

The clouds began to thin as we descended.

At last we broke out from below the cloud level.

Looking back up what we had just descended, the tiny dots of people made us appreciate our achievement.

But the wind didn’t give us much respite, so we kept heading down.

Near the Goûter hut, this view looks across to the Aiguille du Midi.

A good day on the hill!