It was the penultimate day of my Tour du Mont Blanc and, as I scrambled up the side of the Aiguilles de l’Argentière, I was feeling smug. I’d ticked off more than 90 of the 105 miles, almost all in dazzling spring sunshine. Such luck with the weather was encouraging complacency. But up high, any hubris is ripe for a humbling. And the mountain gods were beginning to conspire.
