I finally got to do some ice climbing after a really long hiatus! I had really missed it. Considering the mess of my affairs, when I left Lyon I realized that I had forgotten my real ice climbing crampons, oh well, we'll do with the regular ones.
The plan was to start really early to beat the crowds. We'll we missed our time by like 30 minutes, but in the end, by some luck of nature, no one was on our route! we don't even know where were they!! (who knows maybe there was a Rave Ice climbing party that we missed?)
Remy lead the tough pitches, but gave me the end of the rope for one hard one; I was a little reluctant considering my equipment and training. It was really funny when Olivier saw my ice tools and he said "When you said they were straight, you meant really straight as a ruler!!"... here in France we don't see much of those...hélas, my carbon straight prophets...anyways, my lead was fun, and I placed many screws and moved gingerly (that is a word that Dave uses a lot), we won't say anything about being a little unease at times, I was in total control.
The other rope team of Olivier and Nawale did really well, Olivier handled his pitched cooly. It was fun to climb as two pairs side by side without interfering with each other and providing much in-flight conversation.
