(This has a certain amount in common with this thread
https://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/expedition+alpine/using_a_prussik_to_tie_...
-booked through "reputable UK company" and a Patagonian guide who seemed to know everyone and used a factory-made Prussik loop to tie the middle man in (not me - I was the skinny guy on the far end) when there was 3 of us.
I'm 90% mountainbiker (but with a bit of industrial access in my history); this was my first alpine climbing trip - something different as a 50th birthday present to myself. The week was booked as a "Matterhorn trip", and I'd done a lot of prepwork for it - roped scrambling courses, lap after lap after lap of the autobelay routes at my local wall and a lot of solo scrambling. (A shame the very nice chap I was partnered with for the 2:1 client/guide ratio first 3 days had done zero climbing at all and was utterly out of his depth)
The first shock was that the guide (IFMGA) was new to the Alps - he was only there for a month total and was doing some of the routes for the first time with paying guests. He had a real chubbie for the Matterhorn, and was quite disappointed when it became obvious that it was never going to go (too much snow on it - most of the fixed gear was still buried at the point we had to make the go/no go call). He still wanted to go, essentially using my holiday to do a recce of the place, which was a hard no-no from me - if there was a decent chance (say 50/50) of getting up, I was game for a fight, but I wasn't up for blowing the cost of a (for me VERY expensive) holiday just to punter around. Plan B was Dent du Geant, which again he'd not done before.
Now with my (ex-) MTB guide head on, there was no way I'd take guests down a trail I'd not ridden before - especially in big mountains. I'd want to be able to detail any obvious dangerous sections, or strict no-fall areas and I'd want to know what was coming so I could ride it with flow and give the guests following me the best experience. I mentioned this to the resort host, and he just brushed it off as not something to worry about. We obviously survived the experience, so arguably he was right, but I'm still a bit surprised...?
The big thing though, was how busy the routes were - Cosmiques and Entreves were busy but generally well mannered and I had some nice chats with people from all over, but Dent du Geant was basically a giant clusterfunk with everyone out for themselves, belay points stuffed with krabs to the point getting your own gear out was difficult, rope everywhere, some groups doing long pitches very slowly; others doing short pitches much faster and chaos ensuing (one slow group was being deliberately and vocally obstructive). One memory is of having to tunnel under/through a group who'd overtaken me then got stalled by the traffic at a set of chains to follow my rope now buried under all their string - all whilst stood on a narrow flake at the top of the main face. At one point I managed to mislay one of my guide's cams - I *know* I'd cleaned everything that was attached to our rope. Turned out someone had unclipped it from our rope (why?) and misclipped it back to a different one. (Fortunately the owners of the new rope recognised who it belonged to and returned it). But if stuff like that is happening, it feels like it would be really easy for a fatal error to happen, just as a result of the confusion. The summit was heaving - a quick photo and off we went again. The whole thing felt like a brawl - not with the mountain (which I was expecting), but with my fellow climbers, and there was very little time to savour the experience.
The guide reckoned he'd never seen anything like it either - maybe it was a perfect storm of a situation with the first good weather window and a later than optimal start as we couldn't get accom in the Torino hut, and it sure as hell was a memorable experience, but it was a long way from the peace and quiet I usually go to the mountains for! The views and landscape were out of this world, but it feels like if I do this again, it'll be a long way from Chamonix!
Post edited at 16:41