The weather has been incredible for the past week, and I really needed to take a day off from work to release some of the stress that has been building up with my new company.

I convinced Stefano to go for a climb on the Aiguilles de Chaminix. It has been way too warm to go for something on the glacier and I still wanted to work on a rock route. However, I knew that most climbs in that area are real alpine routes with few pegs, fewer bolts and sometimes no belays either. That was what I was looking for, a real adventure.

I choose the Eperon Nord (northern spur) of the Les Papillons. The route is a beautiful classic climb and this was the best shot we had not to have a crowd of people on the wall. Moreover, it has one of the shortest approaches to the climb (less than one hour), it is possible to descend with a few rappels in the back (if you feel like down climbing a bit, it is possible to descend without any rapps) and I could have gotten some work done later in the afternoon.

I met Stefano at 8 am at the cable ride of the Aiguilles du Midi and were at the Plan des Aiguilles before 8:15 am. Stefano is a serious skyrunner and we were traveling light, so we reached the base of the climb at 8:50 am. A good start, but there was were the adventure began!

Once we were below the face, it was really hard to distinguish she "gigantic detached slab" described in Piola's guidebook. After running back and forth for about 30 minutes we run into a roped party with two soldiers and one instructor: he told us we were too low, but did not know where our climb started, so after another 10 minutes of sticking our noses up in the air, I finally saw some footsteps on a snow ledge and figured that we still had to move a little higher. Finally we were there. the slab was there, but also a bolt. I felt a little disappointed, but it would have been impossible to protect the first pitch without it, so I roped in and started by clipping in the point.

After a few more bolts and a long, exposed traverse, there I was, at the first belay station. Again, it was bolted and in very good conditions, so I kind of felt that the rest of the climb would be as easy as ABC without too many surprise. I was very wrong.

Stefano was still a little bit cold and I was happy to continue to lead. Half the way through the pitch, I was regretting I did not bring my cams n3 and n4, but I was still able to place a decent n2 before moving on easier terrain. Then Stefano took the lead: he found the fist crack and then the right traverse, but then moved too much to the right and found himself too high. I tried yelling him that the belay was supposed to be on the left as I saw the rope ending, but he could not find it. Another party was behind us and I simply decided to move up as fast as possible.

When I got closer to Stefano, I realized he made e belay on cams and that he had skipped the "right" belay station which was hiding to the left ten meters below him. There was nothing else I could do, so I reached him. Evidently though we were not the only ones who did not see the belay station: I found several small cords but no more belays stations. I improvised one on two more cams as I found a crack that could have corresponded to a large crack indicated in the guidebook. Stefano arrived, but kindly offered that I keep on going.

What to do? move on the large crack, with no protections and then hope that I could place something above? If this was the right crack, why did this one have no bolts and the first one did? either were too large for a standard rack. After a long hesitation I went for it. It was actually easier than it looked like, but without protections a call would have been dangerous indeed. Once at the end I moved some more to the left in search for some sign of passage. Nothing, I tried looking down but noting, I tried looking up and found a smaller crack. I moved on it and finally put in a cam. That felt very good. I moved another couple of meters and I found a rusty piton. Boy, that was a joyful event! We were, probably, on the right track, but found no belay station when the rope run out.

Stefano went for the next pitch and finally found e belay station. We were almost at the end of the route. I took the lead for the last two easy pitches which we run as one. We were finally on the Arete des Papillons where we met an old roped party from South Africa who was really kicking ass! One more long pitch of traverse, with a short step of 5 and there we were, ready to descend.

Stefano wanted to rapell on a modern route, but I convinced him to descend on the back side where we only had to absail once and then we could have down climbed and walked on steep but easy terrain. It turned out we could have probably down climbed the whole descent, but I had already pulled out my dyneema cord which I really wanted to try out and everything worked perfectly anyway. Just one side note: there are some webbings and old cords at the notch: don't use them for a rapell. Instead, downclimb a few meters and you will find a much safer bolted belay station that is exactly 50 meters above the point where it is very safe to down climb. Otherwise, from the notch, just follow the narrow ledge and you will end up in the same place.