Sorry for the photo being on its side, not really sure how to align it correctly, but oh well.
The trip to Chamonix went well and I enjoyed myself, even though I did not complete the clinics. On the first day of my glacier traverse class we hiked down a mountain side path rather than wait for the gondolas to take us down to the bottom of Mer de Glace Glacier. It was a rather steep descending hike to the bottom with an additional set of 420 steps to where we were going to traverse scree for another couple of miles to learn how to use crampons and ice axes. I was simply too tired and weak in my legs to do the trek out to the spot on the glacier where the actual training was going to be.
The weather I would guess was no colder than the low 40’s to upper 40’s while I waited for the group to return at the end of the session, but I certainly got some good experience on what would work for my layering system. As you see in the photo, I was wearing both GTX Pro pants and shell (like most of the others actually). But by the time I had gotten down to the bottom I was simply steaming up whereas others seemed more comfortable than me. I think I could have gotten away with simply wearing my Millet Alpha jacket with its wind resistant outer fabric. As for the pants, softshell would have been far better and more comfortable all around I think. I brought along my Mountain Equipment Citadel jacket as a belay piece to keep warm while sitting around, and I have to admit, in the slightly moist and cool weather at Mer de Glace the 200 Grams of Primaloft Gold just did not cut it at times when the clouds rolled in to obscure the sun while I was sitting and waiting for the others in the clinic to return to the train station for the ride back into Chamonix, so this leaves me kind of worried as to what would be a good synthetic belay jacket for stationary purposes. The idea of paying $699 for the Arcteryx Dually seems outrageous when I have down jackets that cost that much that are simply far warmer than a synthetic, although granted down wets out and synthetic supposedly retains its thermal properties moreso, but I have yet to be in a situation where I’ll actually experience it. I could probably have just worn a heavier baselayer and my Montane Tigertooth Pro softshell with my ME G2 softshell pants and been fine all along with something like my Montane Black Ice 2 for belay purposes since it uses the PrimaLoft Down Blend. And as for my water, never had to worry about it getting frozen either and I used a SmartWater 1 L bottle for that. Definitely going to get into more weight training for my quads and thighs too. If you have time to do the clinics, I think they’re really good though and will go back again next year.
