Shaun West write:
The walk up 900m to the Refugio di Chabod (2750m) had a guidebook time of two hours so as I was feeling groggy I was please to get there in the set time. My climbing partners (a small group of Belgians) were a good chatty bunch and luckily they were happy with my terrible French, which was no worse then their English. Still feeling 'iffy' I managed to eat my dinner (mostly) and then got off to bed only to be woken at 3am for breakfast, oh joy.
The morning was wonderful with a cloud inversion over the valley below. The walk from the hut to the glacier went very quickly but we were the last party, which was good as it meant that we could pick our own speed (slow as I was still feeling 'iffy'). We climbed the lower glacier roped up, moving together. The route is easy and nowhere is it too steep. In due course we joined up with the normal route from the Refugio Victor Emanuel and turned a little to the east and joined the queue of people en route for the summit. The queue was amazing so many people trying to summit and such a small way to the top. The view from top was stunning from the Ercins, across the Vanoise, to Monte Bianco, Grande Combin, Mont Cervin, Dent Blanche and Monta Rosa.
The way down to the Victor Emanuel Refugio was good, a mixture of glissading and walking, slipping and sliding. At the refugio we shared a beer before going our separate ways. I ‘only’ had another 1000m of descent down a desperate zig-zag route to do to get back to the car park. The way down was full of wildlife and would have been very quick without the previous 1000m from the summit!
It is a great route with wonderful views and well worth the effort of a weekend's trip.