We were joined yesterday by Graeme and David who are preparing for their International Mountain Leader assessment in a few weeks which is being held in this area for the second year running. We started off at a local fromagerie that we visit frequently to look at how traditional Gruyère cheese is made before heading up the nearby mountain Pic Chaussy to see how much snow was left.
We climbed up above Lac Lioson with Graeme and David cutting steps and trenches into the large patches of snow that remained, as we arrived at the col below the summit it was apparent that making the actual summit would be too difficult so we opted to drop into the next cirque making a descent over large snow fields to the small lake below. The late snow gave a fantastic high alpine feel even though we were only around 2100m.
On the climb up to the col we spotted a lone male ibex above us which seemed a real bonus but when we reached the col we had a real surprise when we saw two more groups of ibex. A group of male ibex were making their way up steep snow slopes while a group of females and young were climbing a steep grassy bank. We were so busy watching these groups we initially didn’t spot a female ibex sitting in some rocks only 50 metres below us on the path unconcerned by our presence.
