Aguille du Tour, or so we thought!

Day 1

After a 3hr delay in making it to the top station, at 12.45 we finally started the descent
onto the Argentiere Glacier. Fresh lines were still to be had onto the plateau. Then with skins on a diagonal traverse takes you past the west shoulder of the Chardonet, followed by the Aiguille du Passon. Passing under the ridges so late in the afternoon on such a sunny day perhaps wasn't the best plan as avalanches were occuring all over the place. A 20 minute steep climb, around 80m, takes you to the top of the Col du Passon, (3hrs).
From the Col, we headed North down onto the Le Tour Glacier to traverse across to the otherside, a 10 minute skin up the far right bank had us in the Albert Premier Hut.
A group of 6 French had beaten us there and started the wood burning stove to warm
the hut up, so all we had to do was enjoy working on the goggle tan a bit more!

After melting copious amounts of snow for new drinking water, and a fine dinner of pasta
and red wine, the french group carried 6 bottles with them, it was time for an early night!
Day 2A 5.30 am alarm call finally had us skiing away from the hut at 7am. As we were roping Sara
up to prevent any more crevass incidents the other group overtook us and thankfully put a
skin track in for 1 3/4 hrs up to the ridge above the Siegnel Reilly rock Outcrop. At this point we felt it fair for us to take over so I broke trail until the foot of the "Col Superiour du Tour". From here it was a steep skin on still icy snow so my wider skis were struggling slightly but around 10.30 we finally made it to the summit and the Trient Glacier. After a wee break we said goodbye to are travelling compagnions to again skin Northwards aiming
for the Aiguille du Tour.The snow was starting to warm up now as the surface crust had melted so the skin round wasn't to tricky, however the sun was also really starting to warm us up so when we finally made it to
what we thought was the foot of the Aguille du Tour every one was thankful for the break.
The Aguille du Tour is the first piece of rock that you will actually come close to, however the
berghsrund that is mentioned in the guide is not visible at present which led us to believe we
werent at the right place. We'd actually skied past it and stopped at the Aguille du Pissoir. We had a short 45 minute climb towards the summit just to "add" to the adventure then decided to ski down.
The Trient Plateau from the top of Col Superiour Du Tour

The first exit couloir around from Aguille du Pissoir is a large cliff. So we continued round to the Col du Midi des Grands before heading hard skier's left and arriving at another small col. Again this was a less than pleasant descent and mainly consisted of a rocky slope around 60 degrees. However this was now the only route back that would end in Le Tour and not Trient! 2 abseils and an interesting traverse skiers left puts you in a gully that is possibly skiable earlier in the season but not currently!!!
Back at the top of the Le Tour Glacier we got to cruise 1500m down untouched snow all the way back down to the Albert Premier Hut. At this point it is advisable to head back across the glacier and exit as if skiing straight down from the Col du Passon. If you decide not to however, you get an amazing 600m descent of untouched and in the shade powder to cruise down. At the bottom of the wind lip travers HARD left and when you can go no further climb up the little gully. From here it is "possible" to ski to Le Tour via the Vormaine nursery slopes. Its just not really recommended. The route is pretty straight-forward envolving a side slip throught the first gully,Tete des Cascades, a small jump over the rocks left of the river, then traverse left below the cliff band to join the normal descent!

And eventually arriving back at Le Tour 10 hrs after leaving the hut and nearly 29 hrs from Grand Montets, we headed straight to Rhodedendrons for a Pithcer of beer!