Tonight's Friday Night Video comes from UKC user Dave Linnett aka BALD EAGLE, documenting his trip with a group of friends to the Écrins National Park in the French Alps last summer.
The beautifully-shot video shows their two-day adventure and features butterflies, marmots and even a rarely seen Brocken spectre as they attempt an ascent of the Barre des Écrins and the Dôme de Neige.
Dave describes the climb below:
"Our group had very little acclimatisation and a predicted short weather window, so decided to take a gamble on the magnificent Barre des Ecrins 4102m which we really wanted to climb. So after a beautiful walk-in to the excellent Refuge des Ecrins on the first day, we had the usual alpine start at 4am the following morning where I found the slog up the steep North East face of the Barre very tough going, with ominous over-hanging seracs just to add to the excitement. By the time our team reached the Brèche Lory at about 4000m I was sick a number of times, the weather was deteriorating and the final West Ridge looked in pretty poor condition so a difficult decision had to be made. I guess it was the classic mountaineering dilemma after investing a lot of time, money and effort on whether to push on in poor conditions and deteriorating weather after being ill. Or stop because it is probably the sensible thing to do and the mountain will always be there..."
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