In reply to jon:
From an alpine journal article by Martin Moran that you linked to in a previous thread on a similar topic:
Any such traverse clearly demanded an intimate and efficient partnership
between two equally committed climbers. Simon Jenkins and I had been
aware of the 4000ers challenge throughout the late 1980s, but instead had
thrown our energies into the shorter but technically harder project of a
non-stop unsupported traverse of the Mer de Glace skyline from the Drus
to the Charmoz.
The experience was bitter. Twice each, in 1988 and 1989, we set out from
Montenvers and traversed the Drus. In each year we had installed food
caches at four of the cols on the skyline. Our best effort got us as far as the Aiguille de l'Eboulement after five days, where we had to abandon the
venture owing to a worsening respiratory infection which was affecting us
both. On each attempt we encountered mixed climbing more sustained
than we could have imagined, rock that was shattered beyond belief and
snow conditions which varied from perfect neve to abominable slush. Our
lack offoreknowledge of the remote sectionsround the Talefre and Leschaux
basins counted heavily against us.
We emerged from these failures happy to let the prize of the Chamonix
skyline fall to someone else but immeasurably strengthened as a partnership
and much the wiser about Alpine climbing conditions. Meanwhile, we were
individually amassing a sizeable tally of 4000ers in our work as guides, so
that our route knowledge approached the level required for a rapid traverse
without eliminating the novelty of the enterprise.