How is the conditions normally in November/December? I’m thinking about the North faces and ice routs. Is it to early for winter climbing ?

For the last two years I've spent most of November out there. The tourists are gone, the weather has been more stable than during the summer months and the huts are unmanned. You also have sub-zero temps throughout the day minimizing rockfall. This year the Midi telepherique closed on Nov. 20th until Dec. 17 so you had to get any couloir climbing up on Mt. Blanc du Tacul done before that; many of the lines were in good nic: Supercouloir, Albononi, Modica-Noury, etc. Also some of the north face routes on the Aig. du Midi were being done such as Couloir Eugster and Voie Mallory. Le Fil a Plomb on the Rognon du Plan was getting a lot of traffic during this period this year.

Using the Midi telepherique as transport, this was were 95 percent of the climbing was taking place up to Nov. 20. The Midi and the Montenvers train being the only two mechanical modes of transport running during the period. The other five percent hiked up to Albert 1er Hut to climb on Aig. du Tour or Chardonnet.

After the 20th, we hiked up to the Leschaux Hut and spent 4 days and nights up there hoping that the Shroud would be in condition. It wasn't, although the Petite-MacIntyre was climbed a few days before we went up. <b>One thing you have to bear in mind for this time of year is that the OHM know nothing about conditions as their eyes and ears are off on vacation. No one I spoke with, including a few guides, had any idea what approach or climbing conditions would be like up where we decided to go or in the Argentiere basin which was another possibility. So be prepared for the unexpected and not getting things ticked off a list.</b>

We took snow-shoes with us and never used them but I'd do it again. The approach to the hut was no problem. The approach to the Grandes Jorasses and Petite Jorasses was not nice. The first hour and a half up the glacier was thru very little snow and on good ice. The last section though was thru increasingly deep, unconsolidated snow and over many crevasses, some visable others not. Once that close to the faces the angle of the approach detracts from the effectiveness of the snow-shoes so we didn't use them.

We wanted to go up on the left-hand branch of the Leschaux Glacier and climb the couloir up to the Col des Petite Jorasses and then Deux Temps and Trois Mouvements over two days to warm up for the Shroud but we could not even get up onto the left-hand glacier (within a reasonable amount of time to enable us to climb something and get down again), it was too crevassed and nasty. We ended up doing the NW Gully of the Frebouze (out of condition with thin ice in upper vertical section; we could barely reach the rappel anchors they were so far over our heads) which looked like it had been approached within a day or two of our arrival facilitating our efforts. And that was it. We tried to approach the face under the Col des Hirondelles and made resonable headway to a point. Then the lateness of the hour turned us back but we still had a long, uncertain stretch to go to make it to the face. We could look over from our high point across to the entry couloirs of the Shroud and see the slabs poking thru the thin ice and decided not this trip.

It was a good trip full of confidence building things that we did. We had the food, the gear, the clothes and the boots right. Two other parties came up to the hut while we were there and after making an attempt to get to the face of the Grandes Jorasses, both headed down the day after they arrived claiming it was too cold to climb. It was -15 at the base of the Frebouze when we got back to our packs from our climb but we stayed up there in those temps for four days and were out in it from sunrise to sunset each day. That is confidence building, knowing you've got the right gear and systems to keep trying in such temps.

I was there for two weeks before the 20th so got a lot more done with another partner who lives in Cham than my partner who flew out on the 19th from the UK. But he also saw the cup half-full and I'm sure we'll both be back next year during the same period.

>One thing you have to bear in mind for this time of year is that the >OHM know nothing about conditions as their eyes and ears are off >on vacation. No one I spoke with, including a few guides, had any >idea what approach or climbing conditions would be like up >where we decided to go or in the Argentiere basin which was >another possibility. So be prepared for the unexpected and not >getting things ticked off a list

The couple of times I went to Chamonix in the last two weeks I had no time to check at the OHM, so I can't comment on that. However, I must add that conditions reports for most of the "normal" autumn-winter climbing sectors of MB were fully available at the Guides Office desk in Courmayeur as early as late November.

For what I've seen, conditions are more or less those described by Clarity, the difference being that several lines reported as in conditions early in the month were more problematic by the end of the year (i.e. the Modica-Noury)

A chap of the PlanetMountain.com went to the Leschaux on Dec. 20th and more or less confirmed all that, adding however that glaciers conditions were truly awful. Personally, I found the Mer De Glace more complicate than usual, but the fact that I was alone may have added to that.

I'll be back up there next weekend, so I'll be able to add something to this.