Cosmique Arete SUCCESS!!!

So.... After the last attempt I went for a different tactic! A 2 man team traveling as light and as fast as possible, plus a departure of 8.30 am meant we were stood at the bottom of the arete at 9.30!

This left us with 8hrs to get back to the Midi for the last bin down. Not wanting to be too pesimistic we set of in glorious sunshine, the snow was still crisp and frim meaing the walk in was very easy. Beware the very large crevass now open on the "skiers Right" as you descent the second part of the snos arete out of the midi.From the foot of the Cosmique arete it was a straight forward climb up to the first ridge. As we were making good time we had to take a few "ACTION" Photos!
We continued around the arete with an abseil down 20m towards the Vallee Blanche side followed by a climb up a diagonal crack in the rock onto a steep snow slope. This leads onto the penultimate climb through an interesting chimney onto the final summit.Down-climb onto the final platform and we finished off at the bottom viewing station of the Aguille du Midi, to have are photos all taken by some japanese tourists!!! Time for this ascent was 30 mins walk in plus 3hrs for the arete, including a coffee and fig role stop, so deffinately an improvement on last time!!!
As Matt decided this wasnt quite enough of an adventure we clambered onto the roof of the viewing station to climb up to the top viewing platform at 3842m.

This was an interesting route starting off with axes & crampons, which were removed half way up when it turned into more of a trad climb before swinging over the safety barrier onto the platfrom to yet another aplause!

NB protection on the last section is sparse and very dubious. The holds are only there due to the shoddy cement so Beware!! P.S dont use the bolts on the cement as they pull out!!!