A great. Day. Out.

(Chamonix, France) - As I mentioned earlier, I skied off the Aiguille de Midi in Chamonix France a few weeks backs. My coworker Alexey and I drove out early AM, he telling me along the way that his wife was pregnant and that I should take good care of him. As I wrote below, for this trip a guide is recomended, but my intuition was that as long as the weather has been good and there hasnt been snow then a guide is not necessary if you have rudimentary mountain skills, an idea about glaciers, and exercise a good deal of common sense. There can be crevasses, but it since the route is so skied if you just stick to the main pathway then you can be sure than a few hundred or so have skied it on that route since that last snow fall. It ended up being on of the most magnificent days of the year to do. Not a cloud in the sky and perfect 30F at the top and 50F at the bottom.

The lift to the top is a true engineering marvel. It ascends almost 9000 ft. from the valley floor in two stages to this little spire of rock (Aiguille is needle in French). Mostly I will let the pictures speak for themselves. Click on them for a blowup.

Me at the midstation on the way to the top. Getting ready for a great day. That is the edge of the Dome de Gouter in the background. The Grand Colouir that I climbed with Nick last summer is off the backside of that.

A shot from the bridge between rock spires at the Aiguille itself. We climb down the arrete, put skis on on the plateau and then ski off to the right.

Alexey getting ready to put his skis on. We have just climbed down the arrete in the background.

Me about 30 seconds before deciding I am incredibly overdressed

The Vallee Blance. The first big valley before hitting the Mer de Glace proper. That is Mt. Blanc de Tacul in the background. To give you a sense of the immense scale ... the ant-like dots down inthe front left corner are people.

Alexey and I taking the first quick break of the day.

A look across the Valley. If you click on the shot you can get a blow up where you'll see tracks on the slope. Many people hike up the far side to get fresh snow off the far ridge.

A look back up the Mer de Glace. We came down on the right. To the left is the Geant ice falls

Another shot of the Geant ice falls

Yet another view of the Geant ice falls from above.

Looking up the glacier towards the ice falls.

The long runout towards the end. We still have about 2 miles to go.

After the glacier is about a 10 min hike up throught the snow. And then we were able to ski almost all the way back to town. The now dissappears in the last 1 k or so and we had to hike it along with our fellow day trippers.

It was a fantastic day. 9000 vertical feet in a single shot!