Sunrise on the Col du Tour Noir
Woke up at 3am after a freezing cold night. As soon as it stopped raining the sky cleared and the temperature plunged.
This was a good thing, as we needed the snow to harden. It did firm up enough to stop the avalanches, but not enough to make for good snow climbing.
Still, we made it over the Col du Tour Noir, watching the sun come up as we climbed. We had hoped to gain the ridge soon and continue over the rather large Mont Dolent, but when we saw the crazy pinacles looking like a broken-toothed saw blade, we decided it looked too dangerous. So we went down around to the right, into a wild glacier valley, where there is no cell phone service. On the way we watched two chamois prancing and wandering in the most unlikely places, like here, kilometers and thousands of vertical meters above where they could possibly find anything to eat.
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