Three days in Heaven

Its not often that everything falls into place and 'one of those days' occur but Friday was one of them. After almost freezing to death the day before at Le Reposoir I made the decision to head back to Italy where Seb, Nigel, and Rob from PMSS, Neil Brodie and myself had been on Wednesday climbing. Nigel trying to look composed before the next pitch
Despite the cold on Thursday we had done two great days Ice Climbing, the 3 PMSS crew were firing on all cylinders even though this was the first Ice since last year. Seb had clearly been on some training programme while Nigel and Rob were their normal determined selves despite Rob being attacked by Monkey's after the first climb.....no I didn't understand either The final day Rob had decided to use the most of some great snow and ski with Allen and small Rob (also from PMSS) so it was just Seb Nigel and myself that traveled to Val Saverenche to climb Antaras, a climb Seb and I had attempted a couple of years ago. We were greeted by blue skis and good cheap coffee when we drove through the Mont Blanc Tunnel, Nigel did a great job getting the car to the parking spot despite a little fresh snow. Seb finishing pitch two of Antaras
There was no one else around, the valley was completely quite, total solitude. The climb was in super condition and even caught a little bit of sun which offset the cold temps. Both Nigel and Seb were pushed by the climb, there was even a power grunt from Seb at one stage when he started to pump out on the 2nd pitch. All 3 of us found ourselves in the cave below the final steep pitch, it was almost in the bag. 2 Years ago in a similar situation the top pitch collapsed while Seb and I were looking at it, this time there was no mistakes. Traversing out from shadows of the cave I blasted up into sunlight. Seb and Nigel made quick efficient work of following and before we knew it all 3 of were topping up tans at the top!! Rob in the trees of Le Reposoir
Back at the car we layed out the ropes to dry on the roof and ate lunch in the warmth of the sun commenting about the joys of the climb and the simpleness of the ethos of climbing. To finish we drove to the head of the valley to get a beer and found two super tame cute foxes who scampered around the car hoping for some of our long gone sandwiches. The cunning fox
I spend hundreds of days a year in the hills but only have two or three days a year like the one on Friday, everything was right, everything was beautiful. Be safe Kenton