Chéré Couloir: freezing, but excellent
First route of the Chamonix week. The weather was mediocre, the ice wasn't.
Machine-translated from the German original. The German version is the one I actually wrote.
Opening of the Chamonix week, and immediately freezing.
The weather was mediocre — not bad enough to turn round, but not the sort where you stand about longer than necessary either. In that cold you build belays quickly and the gloves stay on as long as possible.
The climbing itself was excellent. Good ice, good line, and this sort of route works better cold than warm anyway — the colder it is, the more reliable what you’re swinging into.