Glacier Walking in Chamonix Review

We met our glacier guide, Stefano, early in the morning and got kitted up with harnesses, boots, helmets, crampons and ice picks before catching the 9:30 train up to Montenvers, the little red carriages winding their way up the ancient rack-and-pinion track as they have done since the line was inaugurated in 1909.

Once at Montenvers we took a few minutes to check out the view of the glacier from the terrace, it looked dark and moody with streaks of blue ice showing through the rock and rubble of the moraine. After a short downhill hike we came to the start of the via ferrata where we roped ourselves together and used the steps and bolts that are embedded in the rock to climb down to the series of steep ladders that lead on to the start of the glacier.

Once on the ice we attached crampons to our boots and Stefano began with the basics, leading us up and down inclines, showing us how to adjust our balance and use the teeth of the crampons to grip the ice. He described it as walking like a duck with knees bent, feet spread wide and toes turned out - I felt more like a cowboy with bandy knees but it seemed to work all the same...

Once we'd graduated from the Ministry of Silly Walks we moved on to the more scary stuff, straddling cracks in the ice to test our grip and inching our way along almost vertical walls of ice using ice picks for additional balance. The ice pick was a revelation to me, I was worried that I'd need to swing it like a lumberjack to be able to get any purchase on the ice but it turns out that even with just the tip embedded you can support quite a lot of weight on it without it giving way. We learnt how to use the ice picks to arrest a fall, to give us extra support when hiking up/down steep sections, to cut steps into the ice and to traverse ice walls on the toes of our crampons. All the work was done inside natural gulleys that twist their way through the glacier, some parts were smooth and sheer and others more craggy so we got to practise on plenty of different types of terrain.

In one day we only had time to cover the bare basics, a longer glacier course would include essentials such as rope work, crevasse rescue, ice climbing, etc. These courses run for a weekend and during the winter there is also the option of ice climbing weekends, scaling frozen waterfalls and high mountain climbing routes. See here for all of Icicle's winter and summer courses.

From crampons to cabaret! This Thursday Les Caves is proudly hosting an evening of singing and live music from the Chambelles choir. Entry is 5€ on the door with all proceeds going to Cancer Research, so you get to support local talent and a great cause at the same time. The entertainment starts at 8:30pm and the bar will be open until 2am, with a special 2-4-1- offer on Prosecco to get us shimmying along!

All upcoming events can be found on our What's On Calendar.