Aiguille du tour, our first alps summit

Br's checking out the route

The weather forecast was good, so we started to pack and got ready to go. But before that, we called the hut, and to our dismay,  it was full booked, doh!!! Tent it is then.. Sucks about the extra weight but oh well . The bus to Le tour town was packed. There's another couple who looked like they were going the same direction. To get to the start of the trek we had to take the Le tour cable car and the caramillion chair lift. From there , it took us 2 hrs to get to the hut. The trail was super busy and had couple snow fields to cross.

Aiguille de tour , photo by Brandon Riza, 

Br found a camping spot with awesome view. A little away from Albert 1ers hut , but closer toward our goal. We couldn't pitch our tent till dawn ( French rules apparently ) , so we just sit around staring at the mountain. Early dinner then went to sleep so we can wake up early the next morning.
At 2pm the alarm went off. Br wanted to have other people started before us so we could follow their boot track, (only 2 of us in the rope team which makes it not really ideal to cross the glacier) so we waited till 3.30pm and started breaking down our tent and headed out. There were already quite a bit headlamp on the glacier. This crowd ended up being a bit of pain in the ass later on.

view from our tent

We roped up and started crossing Glacier du tour. About 30 min in, we decided to do the traverse route instead the normal route, passing Signal Reilly toward Col du Midi des Grands ( crossing to swiss!! ) and around to Plateau du Trient. 2 countries in one climb. It was awesome.

br and me at the summit
of Aiguille de tour.
chamonix, france

When we got to the base of aiguille du tour, there were probably 20 people coming down. It was a shit show. We waited for a little bit before headed up the steep snow slope than traverse the rock piles. The climb was around class 3 and 4 ( the way br explained the grade is,  if you fall on class 3, you'll be injured, you fall on class 4, you'll probably die). There were people above and below us and at some point we had to wait for 30 min to let people climbed down from the summit. But it paid off , we got the summit to our self. HA!
This climb is monumental for me, it's only been less than 2 years since my knee surgery, it's our first big climb (roped up, no guide ) together, my first real glacier and mixed climb, and besides it's freaking alps. Can't complain for sure.

At the summit br asked me to stand at the edge of the rock so he could take photo, I firmly say no!, the last thing I want was to slip and fall off the ridge. Lol . We still got our pic thou . Anyway...
Downhill was a bitch. My least favorite part , plus we had to rush too because by that time the snow was already pretty soft  and br was nervous about crossing the glacier, to make matter worse, we went off route for a bit but by 3.30 pm we were back at the camp site, tired, sunburned but excited.
The next day we trekked down and safely back to chamonix. I was badly sun burn ( my own fault of course) but happy, one down and more to come. The next day is zermatt time.