Day 5 Rock Climbing

Since our schedule for the summit had been moved we had an "extra" day
with the guides. Climbing at a local outdoor cliff had been suggested for the day
to my delight, (John wasn't very enthusiastic at all) and we all headed
off at the leisurely start time of 10am after breakfast. On this morning Chris had decided to cook sausages in the apartment rather than eat the muesli supplied by our hosts. We took great delight in painting a mental picture of Chris cooking in his pants with fag in mouth to our climbing companions. The final picture below was faked up, printed and presented to the Icicle Office in a frame on our last day as a thank you. If you ever visit Chamonix, pop into the office and tell us if it's still hanging on the wall.

The cliff was superb, a large green park near a pond with barbecue areas and cafes, I doubt anything even close exists in the uk but Chamonix just seems ideally set up for outdoor pursuits. We warmed up with a couple of top rope climbs before instruction in belay anchors and multi pitch climbing.

I was so glad that the last day wasn't just a "filler" and was as brilliant as the rest of the week. Chris and I teamed up to practice multi pitch ascents while John, who was finding the knots and ropework difficult, benefited from one on one tuition from Jacque. The day was excellent, fun, relaxed and taught me a lot more about rock climbing than I anticipated on this trip.

We headed to the office that night for a talk on weather which was, as all other evenings, really interesting.

We were due to all go out for a celebratory drink and meal that night but John crashed out in his bed at 7pm possibly suffering from delayed effects of altitude and exhaustion which happens to a few pepple each year according to the icicle team. We stumbled back into the apartment at 3am after a great night and after bothering John with drunken ramblings we all crashed out (including John .....again)