Chamonix 01/09/03

The first lift up was late. Busy but not crowded. Although cloudy there was no sign of any rain. We headed off and despite being navigationally embarrassed for a fleeting moment made the bottom of the climb in good time. En route we had met a couple from Seattle after sharing information they decided that the route wasn't their cup of tea and headed back towards the index.

We pushed up the gully to find that we weren't the first party on the route and that there was a queue forming behind us. We sat and watched the Germans ahead of us struggle up the layback initial layback crack. I had already helped them out passing up dropped batteries, but as we sat geared up on the narrow ledge we were able to witness first hand a highly unusual shower of quickdraws. Although I was sure that I'd be able to lead this pitch watching this struggle in front of me did nothing for my confidence. And then they were gone and I was up.

A bit cold and a slightly damp, not a very promising start. I began to understand why the Germans had made it look harder. Thrutching my way up to the first stance I began to wonder if it got too much harder. I exchanged pleasantries with a Valais guide, Eric, who was taking up father and son clients. Eric reassured me that the first pitch always felt harder that it is, not warmed up etc. I was not too reassured. Andrew took the second pitch, and the third. (by mutual agreement - I would take the harder pitches and he the easier ones). we queued for the fourth. And so it went to the 12th pitch.

• Pitch 1 - A strenuous layback up good corner to a bolt belay. (4c RA).
• Pitch 2 - Steep Ground to a bolt belay (4a AS)
• Pitch 3 - Surprisingly difficult moves to surmount a small step, slightly loose rock. Large stance spike belay. (3+/4 AS)
• Pitch 4 - Steep vertical corner, sustained difficulty, bridging and layback moves to a small ledge. Bolt and Piton belay. (5a RA)
• Pitch 5 - A couple of steep moves off the belay ledge and then easier ground and good spike belays. (4c+ RA)
• Pitch 6  - Walk along a steep ridge with good spike runners to a belay in a corner. (AS)
• Pitch 7 - Steep but easy section to the bottom of a 4-metre wall. Bolt belay. (4b RA)
• Pitch 8 - Short pitch up the steep wall - Found this quite hard - small holds and a small overhang. Suspect that the route should have been on the crack on the left rather than the corner. (4c+ ? RA)
• Pitch 9 - Awesome pitch. Make a hard move to get established on an immaculate slab, tiptoe right on a small break to reach a ringer crack (just), and use it to gain the top of the slab. Traverse right to a bolt belay. (4c+ RA)
• Pitch 10 - Move up to the right over some steps to reach a belay below a steep corner. (AS)
• Pitch 11 - Climb up the Steep corner, pitons in place but friends also useful. Spike belay. (5b? RA)
  

The twelfth pitch was a bit of a mystery. There was a track from the top of pitch eleven which led of to the right but the guides had no mention of any walking. We asked a chap who had just followed up which way he though the route went ( he had clearly climbed it before) in broken and halting English we determined that the track to the right lead down and the way to go was straight up. So we followed this advice.

• Pitch 12 - Broken and loose ground to a spike belay. (RA)
• Pitch 13  - Continue up right - continued to be broken and loose (AS)
• Pitch 14 - A steep pitch over very very loose ground - unable to place any real protection very frightening. (RA only)

Eric who had by now gone ahead of us and had finished the route shouted over that we had gone too far left and that we should make for and easy gully on the right. I abseiled on the yellow rope down to Andrew. By the time I had finished fafing around and reached the belay I was badly shaken up. It was also pretty obvious that we were going to miss the last lift down. Time for a Mars bar and form a plan of action. The decision was that we'd abseil down from where we were  to what looked like a path and take it from there. If it was wrong we would be able to reach to reach the top of pitch 11 and reassess.
It was a long abseil ~ 50m which crossed a promising looking gully (with hindsight I think this is where we should have gone)

The Abseil took us down to the bottom of a very loose looking couloir of red rock. I was fairly certain I had seen Eric climbing there earlier so I led on.

• Pitch15  - Broken and loose rock to a good spike belay (RA)
• Pitch 16 - Continued up the shallow couloir to reach the crest of the ridge. Here we were able to regain the route properly. (RA)
• Pitch 17 - Climb down from the crest into another couloir and then up onto the crest of the ridge proper. A meandering pitch. (AS)
• Pitch 18 - Back onto the route properly, I was able to climb up a steep corner and clip a piton. For the sake of self confidence I shouted down to Andrew that it was bomber (I omitted the fact that I could move it up and down with my fingers) and made a committing rockover move to gain the thin summit slab. (5a/b RA) Popped in a useless nut, (again confidence) and continued along a crest to a crap stance below the summit spire. It was gone 6pm and both of us were starting to feel the cold, Andrew even took the time to warm his hands before committing to the rockover.

Once we were both at the penultimate stance there was a brief snow flurry and we both decided to abandon the final 4meter wall.  In those 4 meters I could see three pitons and a tied off thread - this made me think that this final short pitch might be much harder than the rest of the route - not a good idea in fading light with possible "weather" when I was exhausted after a full days climbing. When I checked later it got F6a which could have been a bit of an issue in that state.
We abbed down to a path and started the walk down to Les Praz. At about 8pm we hit the approach path, shortly after it went dark we pulled out the map and donned head torches. With Andrews expert navigation the 1700m descent through a forest in the dark was a breeze.

The hotel was locked up for the night by the time we arrived and we had to make do with a dinner of peanuts, apricots and clacky bars.

A fantastic days climbing.

The following day we were still exhausted and spent the day loafing around Chamonix. Another very good trip.