Rescent Alpine trip

Heat waves and lots of stone fall was on the cards this alpine trip, Our attempt on our intended routes the walker spur and kuffner ridge were abandoned due to the amount of rockfall and snow conditions in the mont blanc range. All wasn't bad tho, we did still managed to get some good routes ticked. We got some good acclimatising climbing in on completing the Midi plan traverse and the cosmiques arete. We also managed the Est Arete on the Pyrimide du tacul which is giving a grade D, this felt pretty easy for the grade with the only hard bit of the route being the bivying and the walk out afterwards. next up we decided to try the Voie Rebuffat route on the south face of the midi, this is graded at TD+ and is pretty long and gets lots of traffic, we were probably the last climbers to start up the route taking it in turns on the leading the pitches, the climbing wasn't to bad but very hard on foot placements, we were up near the top just about to start the last pitch when some serious weather moved in, the whole wall turned into an electrical magnet inviting all lightning around with open arms,by this time we were in complete whiteout with a constant rumbling noise of thunder, things got pretty scary so we decided to phone mountain rescue for advice, straight away they told us to ditch all our equipment, we then had to attach ourselves to the wall using only slings and no hardware, we were perched on a little ledge so it was possible for us to sit on our ropes and cover ourselves in the emergency bothy bag. We waited nervously for the storm to pass but things wernt looking any better, all of a sudden we could hear a voice from above, i popped my head out of the bothy bag and looked up to see on of the french mountain rescue team, what a relief, He set up a rig and lowered down a hoist, myself and Phil both attached ourselves to it and we were lifted up the last 30metres of the route, when we got to the top there was no time to hang around has lightning was hitting the wall all over now, we left the ropes in place and just made our way into the midi station just in time for the worst of the storm. Myself and Phil thank the chamonix mountain rescue team from the bottom of our hearts because if it wasn't for them we may well not be here right now.
we also headed to Grindlewald where we completed the Mittilegi Ridge on the Eiger, this was an awesome route with much character. The climb down the south western flank seemed pretty long and tiring but it was well worth it. Overall a great trip and some great routes.