Chamonix Advanced Mountaineering Course – 5 days, 6 nights

There comes a time in your mountaineering career where you want to elevate your climbing to the next level of capability towards self sufficiency on harder alpine routes. This course is intended for climbers who have been on previous courses and completed ascents on their own but want to consolidate all those skills towards their own climbing independence on bigger routes. By now you will know this is more than merely having technical climbing ability and the pathway to being a more complete climber at a higher level is based around the decision making, planning and mental resolve to tackle harder objectives. Our approach to helping in this quest is to instruct upper level techniques whilst we climb with you on ever more difficult objectives to hone and consolidate your own climbing.

Dates: June to September for private departures. Set course dates are:

             CAMC 1: June 30 - July 6, 2013
             CAMC 2: July 28 - August 3, 2013
             CAMC 3  August 25 - August 31, 2013

Departure: ex Chamonix, France. 1:2 ratio maximum 

Price:  1:1 ratio: EUR3,150             1:2 ratio: EUR1,990 per person

Duration: 5 days, 6 nights   (7 days overall with 2 days travel, 5 days guided instruction)

You can view the Chamonix Advanced Mountaineering Course notes or download a pdf using the below links:

Adobe Acrobat DocumentChamonix Advanced Mountaineering Course Notes 2013
Adobe Acrobat Document: 628 KB, 92 seconds @ 56kbps

Course Program 
 
Arrival day 0. Sunday  
The team meets at 6:30pm in our hotel for a briefing. Your guide will go over the activities for the week and answer last minute questions before dinner. Hotel night.

Day 1. Monday
After organising last minute kit hire, we take the Grandes Montets lift to 3200m where we tackle a short training climb, the North Face of the Petite Verte (AD-), a good venue to practice steep ice climbing techniques.

We descend to the valley for a short debrief and, if there is time, a slide presentation by the guide followed by dinner in town. Hotel night.

Day 2. Tuesday
We drive through the Mont Blanc Tunnel to Italy, and take the Helbronner lift to the Col du Geant.  We trek round the Aiguilles Marbrees to the Col de Rochefort from where we traverse the Aiguilles Marbrees back to the Col du Geant (PD-). We stay at the large Torino hut with its excellent Italian coffee. Hut night.

Day 3: Wednesday
A nice early start sees us traveling over the glacier to do a traverse of Route D’Entreves, which is a spectacular exposed ridge traverse climb, although never extreme and immensely enjoyable. This is a perfect warm up for our climb of the Dent du Geant tomorrow. We return back to Torino hut in the afternoon to relax and then get to bed early before another alpine start.

Day 4. Thursday
After an early breakfast, we cross the Col du Geant to climb the magnificent Dent du Geant (AD) a 4000m peak culminating in 200m of steep and exposed rock climbing. With a strong team it is also possible to traverse the Arete de Rochefort before climbing the Dent du Geant.

Day 5. Friday
Today we make an early start for the Aiguilles Marbrees to the Col de Rochefort from where you will have the chance to plan and lead the  traverse of Aiguilles Marbrees back to the Col du Geant (PD), and back to the Torino and Chamonix. Hotel night.

Departure day. Saturday
Breakfast, a chance to exchange photographs and departure

Please note: itinerary may change if conditions are more suitable in another region or factors such as weather to lift service precludes access into this region.
 

Cost includes:

• Guide
• Lifts
• Mountain huts
• 3 nights hotel B&B on twin share basis including first night and last night of course
• Transport during course dates as per schedule
• Ropes and group technical equipment
• Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner during mountain component of course

Cost does not include:

• Any lifts, huts, hotel B&B, transport costs that are additional to the program due to changes to program due to weather or organisational changes. Any changes will generally be due to weather/lift failure (etc) and actioned after you have been consulted by your guide.
• Personal equipment and clothing
• Evening meals during hotel nights in Chamonix
• Extra additional meals or snacks/drinks purchased from huts/hotel
• Insurance
• Transport to and from Chamonix (although we can arrange it for you)
• Gratuity

Extras: Add on a 3 day ascent of Mont Blanc after the course to make the most of your acclimatisation and newly acquired skills.
 

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