Guy's arrival in France coincided with the end of what had generally been a long spell of reasonably good weather. While June had been unusually warm, and July more or less following suite, starting the first of August, everything changed. The high rock routes got covered with snow and cold and generally wet weather dominate for almost the entire month. We still managed to get some good climbs in, but it became a bit of a challenge to determine where in the Alps had the best chance of reasonable conditions and more or less blue skies. We did a bit of traveling.

Our fist day, the 30th of June, was just about the last day of generally good weather. Here, we are on the Arête des Cosmiques, looking towards Mont Blanc. You can see the high clouds warning of a change.

Guy enjoys the sun-warmed rock on the Cosmiques.

After our climb on the Aiguille du Midi, we continued across the Vallée Blanche to the Torino hut. This photo was taken from the hut at sunset. Lenticular clouds are beginning to fill the sky.

The next day we managed to climb the Aiguille du Rochefort. Mont Banc engulfed in cloud in the background.

Climbers on the Rochefort.

In what turned out to be a vain attempt to outrun the weather, we packed up our bags and moved east to the Saas valley, usually one of the driest in the Alps. Our goal was the Holaubgrat on the Allalinhorn, seen here. This photo was taken from the hut, the late afternoon before the climb.

The Britannia hut, our base for the Allalinhorn.

Waking up in the dark at the hut, we stepped outside to find it snowing lightly. Back to bed for another hour or so, until it stopped. Then up again and out the door. As we climbed the weather closed in again and we began our descent. A few minutes later, however, the skies cleared and we turned around yet again and stared walking uphill. That was when this photo was taken.

However, we had not walked for more than a few minutes when dark and moist cloud again moved in over the mountains. This one looked serious, and we returned to the hut. In the end, the weather never really did clear that day.

However, the following day the rain stopped long enough for us to make a climb of the Eck route on the Riffelhorn. Though it misted and even sprinkled off and on, the rock stayed mostly dry.

On our last day, we had hoped to climb the Breithorn Half Traverse. Again we were thwarted by the weather and had to change plans. So it was off to Pollux for us. On this climb we were joined by our good friend and photographer Alan Kearney of Bellingham, Washington.

Guy and Alan getting frosted on the summit of Pollux.