Monday 17 August
Climb Aiguille de L’Index
View of Aiguille de L’Index from the Valley
Aiguille de L’Index
The Chamonix Train only stops at our stop Les Mousseaux on request. Cable car and chair lift take us right up to the Index, with only a short scramble through the rocks to the start of the traverse across the rock face to the climb itself. Leaving bags in the scree chute at the bottom of the descent we start on the traverse towards the climb, along with several other parties. On seeing an old man and 2 young girls in the queue ahead of us, we unwisely assumed that they would be holding us up, but they were as naturals on the rock and made light of any difficulties in the crux of the climb.
Climbing over lichened granite a steep wall that had become polished was the only difficulty.
At the descent abseil, the way was not obvious to me and a veered to the right instead of keeping to the arête.
This resulted in an abseil to (and off) the very end of the rope, a full and stretchy 120 feet (carefully calculated of course) and then a scramble above the chossy exposure back to the col.
not at home 