After a winter spent enjoying the powder - http://gavpike.blogspot.com/ - I've been getting back into the climbing again recently. Conditions in the Mont Blanc massif have been somewhat patchy this winter, but there are still plenty of things to go at. On Thursday, I headed up the Argentiere Glacier to get on the Lagarde Direct, a big ice line on the north-east face of Les Droites. 
A left-hand start seems to be the way to go at the moment - the first pitch of the normal direct has a tricky shrund and steep unconsolidated snow. After a short mixed section, the left-hand variation regains the normal direct about two pitches up.
Enjoying the bomber ice on the crux pitch.Previous to this, I'd spent two weeks up in Scotland sampling what seems to have been the finest winter in most folk's memories. There was certainly more snow up there than I've ever seen before. A first trip up climbing in the North-West was particularly memorable, before the onset of a thaw drove us back south to the greater elevations of Ben Nevis.
Walking across the frozen lochain into Coire Mhic Fhearchair on Beinn Eighe. What an awesome crag!
Battling past the crux on Central Buttress (VI,7), a squeeze chimney that wouldn't be out of place in Yosemite.
Plastic ice and a bluebird day on the Ben - Hadrian's Wall Direct (V,5).Gav Pike.
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