UKH

Has anyone been up Vallée Blanche this last week or two? Keen to find out more info on conditions as am heading out next week with a few alpine routes in mind.

Isn't the Vallée Blanche in Chamonix rather than Les Ecrins ?

Ha oh god aye, I wrote that with total lack of sleep. Meant Glacier Blanche of course. Facepalm.

A pal was there this week, if you PM me I'll send a photo 

We climbed the Barre by the west ridge last Saturday. 

The approach time to the hut is much longer than suggested as the glacier is in a very poor state, allow 6 hours from Pre de Madame refuge.

On the route itself, the glacier is in very poor condition, there is a section of bullet hard ice at the start and beyond this several narrow snow bridges need to be crossed, fine when cold early on but felt exciting on the descent.

Crossing the bergschrund involved some very crunchy ice up to the start of the rocky west ridge. The scrambling from here is very good.

Be prepared for a long day on the summit day, for us it was 16hrs from hut to summit back to the campsite in Ailefroide.

gosh that photo looks terrible.  is that on the first steep bit?  there have been several bad fatal serac accidents there over the years.  

was going to post something similar, when I climbed the Barre des Ecrins the approach to the breche was just a walk with the obvious route easily avoiding some large crevasses. But that was some 30 years ago & there's a lot less glacier today

That was above the first serac.

It's in a really bad state, was chatting to one of the guides in the hut and they thought it wouldn't be climbable in summer for very much longer

Could you say more about what is making the walk in to the hut slower? Is it just soft or uncovered crevasses or negotiating the edges? Thanks - we are going mid-Sep

I went up the Barre a couple of weeks ago. Glaciers still OK then, understand it's likely changed since then. Getting to the hut was OK, there was an obvious point folk were joining the glacier, from there it's just a dry glacier, couple crevasses to go around but nothing too bad. Think we took four hours to the hut, then 12 hours from hut to the Barre summit and back to the car.

It was exceptionally hot on the Glacier Blanc yesterday (21st August). In the pre-dinner weather briefing the hut guardian looked slightly exasperated that anyone was going up the Barre. “If the glacier is not frozen when you get there, you should turn around”. We didn’t go up the Barre but the Glacier Blanc was certainly not frozen even over night. There has been lots of stone fall and “two helicopters a week”. To me, there are too many lemons lining up up there. The Glacier Blanc approach was ok, lots of old rubbish melting out but the soft snow bridges we obvious and avoidable. 
 

Ailfroide is an unbearably hot furnace. There was a huge, all-day rockfall up near the Refuge de Sele and the helicopter was evacuating people back to the campsite. 

Whoa, just looked - 40 degrees in Grenoble this week, scary stuff up high.

https://fb.watch/mAhTjo2b2P/

Yeh we are currently going through our second heat wave of this summer. To be honest it's be hot out side theses as well. Looks like it should be returning to normal temps at the weekend.

As some said above there has been a lot of rock fall in the Séle refuge valley, I have heard reports of people seeing it for weeks. Mainly on the other side of the river to the summer path. The last big fall (in the video linked above), was in the Pelas Verney Couloir, normally a nice ski in winter. There was sadly a young guide killed by rock fall at the Sialouze a week ago. The PGHM have asked for no one to go in to the valley while they assess. they should be doing another briefing today.

One other issues that's is growing is the number of people heading to high mountain multi pitch route to escape the heat. I have never seen it so busy on some of these routes or areas. Some of these routes being mountain based have loose rock (not just because of the heat) and this can be an issue when busy. I had group above me a few weeks ago dislodge a microwave size block that hit and cut both my ropes. I have heard a few stories this year like this and think picking your line and time is getting more important.

Of course the other option is early sports cragging follow by a dip in an ice cold river and an ice cream? 

That’s it! Thanks for the video. The whole campsite were standing watching it, I wasn’t sure where to find out more information online. 

the Pghm facebooks are always good for info.  Lots of bad events in Switzerland this week as well.  Of course by Monday morning you may be longing for a bit of warm weather!

Yikes! Exactly 4 weeks ago I was right opposite that watching some light stonefall come down the gully wondering if it was going to fall as far as the 5 Chamois who were on the scree at the bottom.

E

Good grief! 

Just to add, the local authorities has now closed the Séle refuge and the footpath up to it, until further notice. 

In reply to:

It's all going to shit isn't it?

I climbed that section with my friends from Torino, Silvia and Flavio B in 2013.  The foot printed parts through the seracs were a bit frightening.  Then we traversed across the flat section, to the right and up the quite steep snow bit.  Real mountaineering.

More on hut closures in the Ecrin....

https://twitter.com/subfossilguy/status/1694032702666576291?s=20

the pelvoux hut is actually open till next wed but access is only by the pas de la rosse which has some bits of climbing on it

the pelvoux hut is actually open till wed but access is over the pas de la rosse which involves a bit of climbing