My first trip to the Alps was nothing great.

The second trip was far more productive. I did a number of enjoyable routes on different mountains with various partners, miraculously the weather usually seemed to deteriorate whenever we got back to the valley and needed a rest.

There are a few photos here CH

On the last day of the trip The Big Russian and I were going to try the Fuori, it had such a fine looking ridge. Left of the bright rock in the photo above.

VI was the top grade in the Alps (which we hadn’t tried before); this was divided into VI+, VI and VI-. The Fuori was VI so maybe we stood a chance. Our guide book was not very encouraging; ‘Unfortunately a huge rockfall tore away the right wall of the long chimney. This has produced harder climbing and more artificial techniques’.

In Scotland I would back off a route rather than pull on a runner, but we had got up a route a few days earlier which had two points of aid, so perhaps we could climb two pitches on aid to get up the ridge.

After climbing The Pioda we had traversed along the ridge to the top of the Fuori and found a way down with a few abseils, so at least we knew how to get off, if we got to the top of the route.

I was climbing slightly better than The Russian so expected to do more than my share of leading. He was more worried about the aid than I was, so we had agreed the previous day that I would try to lead the aid.

The Big Russian, The Wee Russian, Billy and I were sleeping under a large granite boulder, the pair of us left before first light and headed up towards the Fuori, it was the coldest morning of the trip and the spring we had expected to drink from had frozen up, so being thirsty was not a good start to the day.

The pullover my Mother had knitted and my Belstaff motor bike jacket were not keeping the cold out so Raynaud’s took over and my hands went numb.

When we got to the start of the route I told The Russian he would have to lead and I struggled to second with white fingers.

I had warmed up by the time we got to the first aid pitch so took over the lead. What a long stunning pitch it was. It went up just left of a very sharp arête and was probably a bit steep to be called a slab, to the right of the arête the rock was overhanging with a drop of at least a thousand feet.

I followed a line of drilled holes at about two foot spacing, each hole contained a piton. It would probably have been OK to use the pegs as footholds but I decided to take my time, not make mistakes, and clip slings into the pegs for my feet. The Russian was out of sight patiently paying out rope so he had little idea what I was up to.

I belayed below the crux overhang, The Russian (still nervous) shouted up a question as he was concerned that my belay might be inadequate. “Two pegs and three bolts” was my reply.

After he arrived at the belay we swapped places and I quickly led the overhang. We did some more pitches then scrambled a few hundred feet to the summit.

The frost had cleared the air and the view over miles and miles of peaks was spectacular.

The lens was loose on my compact camera (after someone had damaged it squeezing up a chimney in Glencoe, with it slung round their neck). During this trip the lens had detached from the camera completely so I had glued it back on and taken a couple of films, I didn’t know if the photos would turn out so I had stopped taking snaps. The Russian had a waterproof camera, but it didn’t have an exposure meter so he had guessed the exposure, the results were overexposed.

Memories would have to do.