Pellissier Gully

The team was Brummie Carl, Chris and myself. We caught the first cable car to the top of the midi with a number of other teams who were off climbing. The target for the day was Pellissier Gully on Pointe Lachenal, a really cool 220m route first climbed in 97. We walked round to the base with snowshoes, which wasn’t too bad; despite the grief I gave the guys about not being able to ski. There was a team at the bottom already (who had skied) but they were moving up the first pitch as we geared up. Crossing a nasty looking Bergshrund I booted up the snow cone and put a belay in beneath the 1st pitch. Carl got all excited when I said he should climb first, thinking he could lead, but in fact I meant he climbed 1st out of him and Chris. Carl had led us up the Cosmiques Arête the day before and had the leading bug. The 1st pitch is all ice and we were quickly at the belay chatting to cool Italian women called Daniela while her guide climbed the next pitch. This was a little more mixed, with a couple of sections of dry rock, which the guys found interesting. Carl was loving it all and appeared at the belay each time with a HUGE grin. The crux was pitch 4, the guidebook gives it M5 and it was a tricky little section, which was again dry. Chris did an awesome job picking his way up the hardest mixed climbing he had ever done so well done to him. From here 30m of VS rock climbing put us on to the shoulder and into a snow gully. A couple of easy mixed pitches put us on the top of the buttress and the end of the route. From the top it was across to the Midi again. This was probably the crux of the day as we were running a little late and we had to run up the arête to catch the last lift. I thought poor Chris was going to explode he was so red. But it was worth it and 30mins later we were drinking the first beer in Chamonix. A great day out with 2 cool guys, and a fab route.