Gietroz and Chesereys

The dreaded Foehn wind arrived in Cham recently and as usual has brought really warm and unstable weather. The mountains have been blasted by wind and the Midi was shut for a couple of days so we've been keeping our heads down and going cragging. Gietroz was first up yesterday, and we all had a good day, with Tom onsighting 7a for the first time - nice work. The crag is amazing, I'd somehow managed not to go before, and I'll definitely be back soon.

                                

                                      Dave belaying with the back of the Le Tour behind.

Growing a bit bored of bolt clipping and keen for a bit of adventure, Hugh and I hitched up to the Col des Montets and went up to the Kinou area of Les Chesereys. Peter and I had been up and done Kinou (6b) itself a while back and noticed how big the crag is and how few routes there are, so we were keen to do a new route.

We started up a nice corner just right of Kinou and I led 3 pitches to get us started and then handed over the lead following a very civilised lunch stop on a ledge. Hugh climbs hard on bolts but hasn't done much trad yet he was still keen for a lead. Luckily he was armed with my quick run through of how to place gear - "You'll work it out if you're scared enough" - and shot up a pretty bold pitch. Good effort.

We managed to link together some really nice sections of climbing, and although we had to cross Kinou twice (resisted the temptation to clip the bolts!) we did the whole route and all the belays on trad gear. I doubt the climbing press will be clammering for the story, but we reckonned it was about E1 5a, and we're calling it "The Harrowing".

                                                      

                           Kinou Crag. Our route stayed about 20 metres left of the waterfall all the way.

     Foehn looks like it's here for a few days yet so more unstable weather and no big missions. Bummer.

Grand Jorasses, Midi South face and Bellachat

I'm sitting writing this as a broken man - what a 4 days!

Firstly, with lots of recent snowfall up high and a good forecast, Tom and I headed up to have a go at the Croz Spur on the Grand Jorasses. We ran into a British guide on the way up who described it as "the best mixed route in the Alps" and said he thought it would be in, so we were pretty psyched.

The approach was pretty long but we eventually found a good bivi under the face and got settled in. Up and away by 5am, we were soon on the face and found the first ice step to be pretty cruddy, hollow ice, but we carried on hoping for better because you just do when you've put in a big walk in and a bivi.

However, about 200 metres up the face and having moved together the whole way, the ice was getting increasingly poor, and just as we were discussing our options a volley of rockfall came down, so that was decision made. Always a shame to fail but when conditions are bad you can't do much about it.

Approaching the north face of the Jorasses. Gulp.

Downclimbing some of the easier terrain on the way home.

Walking back to Montenvers we felt pretty good so arranged to go up the Midi the next day and climb the uber classic Contamine route on the south face. The next morning we didn't feel quite so fresh - a virtually sleepless bivi and a huge walk out in deep snow the day before suddenly catching up with us - but we'd said we'd do it and couldn't wimp out.

The route itself is amazing, the crux coming in at about E3, and stiff at that. Tom freed it with a few rests, but I felt no such pressure and pulled on anything I could get my hands on. Just as well too because there were loads of queues on the face and we only just made the last bin as a result.

As with the Rebuffat route on the same face descent is easy by ab, and with 60 metre ropes we were down in 3 abs.

Tom feeling the pain on pitch 4.

Plodding back up the Midi arete - must be summer!

Finally, today a team of people from a company I have worked for over the last few years (Exodus) were out for a "working" trip to Chamonix over the weekend, so we had a superb day walking up to the Bellachat refuge, just below the Brevent. Despite 3 big days under my belt, and some thorough research into Cham nightlife under theirs, we kept a good pace up and were rewarded by some superb views, albeit with a bit of cloud. I think I might have got their hopes up with my description of the view as "the best on the World", but it was still pretty good despite not being totally clear. A great way to end an amazing few days.

Dan, Chloe, Niraj and Brendan looking a lot fresher than the photographer!!!

So overall, it seems that the big mixed lines might finally be done until autumn, but I'm keen to do more, so I'd love to be proved wrong. The south facing rock is also pretty dry, as was the West face of the Petites Jorasses, so plenty to go at. Meanwhile down on the Vallee Blanche, things like the Pyramid du Tacul, Pointe Adolphe Rey and Petit Capucin still look pretty plastered so they'll need a bit longer.

Don't even want to think about exercise for now though!

Finally, a little vid from on the Croz as I didn't take any photos.

More dodgy weather

Since doing the Contamine Route last wednesday the weather has been pretty rubbish, with lots of rain and cloud, and occasional sun. However, the last 2 days have been pretty good so monday was spent on the slabs of Les Dalles D'Arveyron, which dry quickly and are superb for getting your footwork going. Really recommended for a first day after rain.

Yesterday Hugh and I headed for Barberine because he KNEW it would be dry, even though I wasn't too sure. As it turned out it was more like a waterfall than a rock climb, so we headed back to Argentiere and teamed up with Kieran to go to his local crag. The crag isn't in the guidebook, and despite only being 7/8 metres high, there are 3 superb routes with a tree above to anchor a top rope. To get to the crag just walk down the Chemin de La Moraine, go under the bridge at the end, up the dirt track for 50 metres, and the crag appears on the right.

We had a good session working the routes and eventually I had a go at leading the route on the arete, and got it 3rd go after getting the moves sorted on the top rope. With the crag not being in the book we didn't know the grades, but (starting from the arete on the left) Hugh reckonned about 7a+, 6b, 6c. There's also a few variants possible, so we did all those too. Overall a really good day, and an immense work out - I was knackered!

Weather looks like it's picking up soon, so here's hoping.

Sending it! Studies have shown that climbing topless increases contact strength by 300%.

Hugh working the arete. He's actually quite good at climbing despite looking like William Shakespeare.

Winter Video

With Mont Blanc skiied and the Vallee Blanche descended for the final time, it seems winter is finally over, so I've put together a little video of images from the last 6 months. Hope it gets you psyched for next year!

Thanks to all the various partners who appear - here's to many more missions.

Contamine Route, Pointes Lachenal

With one day of good weather left and very high temperatures, Tom and I went up the Midi and skiied into the uber classic Contamine route on the Pointes Lachenal. After failing to change into rock boots without getting them wet on the snow we set off on perfect golden granite, and the great pitches just kept coming! As with many granite faces, the route finding is not amazingly obvious, but we managed to find the crux pitch easily enough, and Tom dispatched it pretty quickly. We reckon about E1 5c, and superb with it.






Tom high on the crux pitch

With the crux pitch out of the way there are 3 much easier pitches left, making about 10 pitches in total, and then an ab descent. With all the cracks and other potential rope snags, you need to be careful which line you ab, but with so many fixed belays about it's pretty easy. We stayed roughly on our line and occasionally headed out onto the face to the left to ensure smoother rope management.

From the bottom we had an hour left until the last bin down the midi and the last train down from Montenvers. For reasons which now aren't very obvious we convinced ourselves we could ski the Vallee Blanche quickly enough to make it, but having to pole from the Salle a Manger for nearly an hour, followed by a half hour walk on moraine to even get to the Montenvers ladders proved us wrong. The VB is all but impossible now, so don't bother. We eventually made it to Montenvers at 7, and were in town for 8, so not too bad.

Long walk aside, we both agreed that the quality of climbing on the route was as good as anything we'd climbed in Cham - highly recommended.

Variety is the spice of life

Quite the week just gone by, starting with rock climbing in Provence and ending on the summit of Mont Blanc!

With the bad weather lasting into it’s 3rd week, Peter and I headed down to Provence and had 3 superb days clipping bolts in the sun around Les Dentelles and Malaucene.

Well you can't go to Provence and not have a few drinks!

Peter latching the "thank God" hold on Mad Max, 6b.

Having got back we were both super keen for alpinism but there was a huge amount of snow, so having tried the Le Tour basin (woke up in the hut to find the wind howling across the glacier) and the Midi (just too much snow all round), we decided that the only way to salvage the week would be to ski Mont Blanc.

Acclimatisation was, to put it mildly, limited but we were both pretty confident that we could bash it out, so took the last bin up the midi and got settled in for the night.

Incredible sunset from the Midi.

The next day dawned clear as we made our way up the 3 Monts route, and after some fairly intense suffering (made worse by the glue on both Peter’s skins failing 300 metres from the top and him having to crampon it in deep snow) we somehow found ourselves on top. A quick change and we were off, skiing down the way we had come then down the Corridor, onto the Bossons Glacier and finally the Plan de l’Aiguille lift station.

Skiing away from the summit.

The track up and the ski down are currently really good, although the good snow ends at around 3300 metres and becomes slush, but it is nearly June so I musn’t grumble. There are still a few days of good weather left so I’d recommend getting on it.

Mont Blanc from near the top of the Bossons Glacier - not a place to linger!

As for alpinism there is a vast amount of snow everywhere making life pretty tough, but the classics such as the Cosmiques Arete and Pointes Lachenal have good tracks to them, so there’s still things to go at. Also, Tom has been out a lot recently and thinks the north faces should be really good. He’s also been skiing all the silly steep stuff, so plenty for the steep ski nutters to go at too.

Good weather is supposed to last until Tuesday afternoon so get out there!

Lots of Cragging and Rain

Since bailing off the Haute Route 2 weeks ago the weather has been consistently dire, with plenty of rain and no sun. That said, it has occasionally stayed dry enough to permit some cragging so Gaillands and Le Fayet (the only crag that is dry in the rain) have seen plenty of me as I try to get some mileage in on the rock.

It looks like the bad weather may FINALLY be coming to an end, but conditions up high will take a while to settle so it's going to be at least a few more days before there's any chance of doing big routes. Tom has been skiing steep routes off the Midi recently and reckons there is a lot of unstable snow up there, particularly on lower angled slopes, so it looks it will be a case of wait and see. If it does clear and we get a good period of stable weather and freeze/thaw to consolidate all the snow, it could be epic.

L'Arete (6a), Frendo Area, Les Gaillands

Haute Route - Aborted!!!

With high hopes we set off last wednesday for an haute route on steroids, the basic idea of which was to avoid the motorway on the normal route and ski as much steep terrain as possible.

Started off at the Argentiere Refuge, which was very nice indeed. Much nicer than the bivi these 2 guys (spot the light!) will have had on the Droites! Not sure if it was a planned bivi, but either way it will have been a chilly night.

After deciding against the Barbey Couloir on the Aiguille d'Argentiere we went up to the Col Superior du Tour Noir, the obvious low point in the middle of this photo.

Final slog up to the col.

Worth it for the view. The Matterhorn looked so close it was hard believe the route would take a week!

We dropped into the SE couloir off the col and found some good 45 degree spring snow, albeit in boling temperatures (I was in a t shirt and thin shell jacket and was dripping with sweat).

However, as we got lower (still above 3000 metres!) the snow got worse and worse and in the end it was knee deep slush, really tough skiing. At one point a wet avalanche came past us, which wasn't massive but big enough to be concerning, so if you do this couloir, get up early.

Despite the poor snow low down, the top half was superb, and it is a great ski and an amazing line, so highly recommended if in good nick. The guidebook gives it 5.2, 45 degrees, 600m.

SE couloir is the obvious curving couloir coming down from the col right of the peak.

After a night in La Fouly we had a good look at the forecast and reluctantly decided that the 2nd day would have to be our last. We got up early hoping to climb and ski the Pointe de Drone, but bad visibility stopped us, and we opted to cross the Col de Bastillion in order to reach our pick up point at Super St. Bernard. The col isn't really a touring col and required a bit of easy mixed scrambling to reach, but provided a nice gentle ski down to the road.

It's now 5 days later and the weather looks rubbish for a good while yet, so a good but disppointing call to abandon. There's always next year.

Col D'Argentiere

Keen to get back in the hills after a weekend of eating and drinking, I went up Grand Montets with Rory today to ski the Col D'Argentiere.

The forecast was for 80% sunshine, so we were hoping we might get some good views and a bit of fitness. However, the vis came and went all day, and the forecast 20cm of fresh snow hadn't arrived, so conditions weren't great, but it was good to catch up with Rory and get some exercise all the same.

Rory rocking the Swedish look

View from the col!

The ski down was pretty good fun despite the snow - massive, fast turns all the way. It might not to be perfect powder but summer will be here soon and we'll have to walk down everything!

Vivagel

With a good forecast for thursday, Tom, Sergei and I headed up for a bivi at Grand Montets and a plan to do Vivagel Direct (IV, 5, ED, 1000m) on the Aiguille Verte the next day. As it turned out we skipped the direct finish and did Vivagel itself (IV, 4, TD, 1000m). See line below.

Photo Courtesy John Cuthbert

After a very warm bivi in the cable car station toilets we set out early and after a short ski and skin up we started soloing up the low angled start to the Couturier. One party ahead of us had turned round due to lots of snow but we found it really easy, mainly because the track was already in place. Where the Couturier bent right we went left and began moving together up perfect, but seemingly never ending neve.

Sergei half way up the low angled bottom ice slope.

Having reached the steep headwall in good time we began pitching and found some pretty hard, black ice, which really slowed us down. The ice was steeper than it looked and brittle so we made steady but pretty unspectacular progress.

Photo courtesy http://www.skisickness.com/

By pure chance a friend our ours was skiing along the Argentiere Glacier and got this shot of us arriving at the start of the technical climbing at about 9.15. Look closely!

Me leading through the initial technical section

Sergei and Tom following the first proper pitch. Steeper than it looks and quite delicate in places, but really good climbing.

After doing 5 pitches we made the decision not to do the direct finish due to the time, but started moving together again up towards the normal finish up more good firm neve.

Having done one last pitch on hard ice we crested the ridge and got a superb view of the Jorasses (see above) and finally got the weight off our feet. Nice ledges are conspicuous by their absence on this face!

Me and Tom on top!

We had planned to ab the face and knowing there continuous ice we set off on a marathon of V thread digging. Huge thanks to Sergei on this one - the World's fastest and best V thread digger! We lost count of the abseils, but between 15 and 20 is our best guess, followed by a long down climb back to skis and a long (but quite enjoyable) ski back down to Argentiere in the dark.

The inevitable consequence of "having a look at the top bit" when time is running out!

All in all a great route in pretty good condition, just allow plenty of time. Cheers to Sergei and Tom for their good company and ability to keep smiling long after it was reasonable to do so!

All the routes on the buttress look good and the Couturier must have had 20 people climb it during the day, all of whom descended the Whymper, so it is clearly the mountain to be on.

As ever, April is proving to be immense!

Domes de Miage

Just got down from 2 great days skiing the Domes de Miage with Emma. The approach to the Conscrits hut is frankly brutal - 1.5 hours walking uphill in ski boots and then 3 hours skinning. Worth it for the view though (see above).

Sunday started with sun and cloud so we headed up optimistically towards the Dome de Miage. The skin up is pretty long, and is followed by a ridge walk in crampons of about half an hour. We took about 4.5 hour in total but were very leisurely.

The summit is apparently one of the best viewpoints in the massif, but we'll have to take other's peoples' word for that!

We skiied off the summit and down the north facing Amancettes Glacier, and got some superb snow, but had to ski pretty conservatively due to bad visibility. The snow became pretty patchy at 2000 metres, but we managed to half ski half walk to 1500m then gave up and walked in the rain.

The downside of spring touring!

Chippendale Gully

Headed up the Midi with John the other day and did the Chippendale Gully (IV,4, 300m) on the Petit Capucin. We had originally planned to do the Valeria but with the amount of ice flying down we made use of John's local knowledge and switched routes after the first pitch.

Me heading up the second pitch of the Chippendale Gully

The route is in pretty good nick right now, and the second pitch in particular has some superb steep neve, but the middle snow slope is pretty cruddy.

Finishing the last pitch

The top 2 pitches are probably the hardest right now due to a distinct lack of neve, but overall definitely worth doing.

Col de Cristaux (nearly)

Col des Cristaux

Pointe Domino, Petit Viking looking in great nick.

John earning his turns

After a week at sea level in NW Scotland I was keen for an easy first day back so John and I headed up to have a look at the Col des Cristaux at the back of the Argentiere bowl. Despite a poor forecast the sun was out and plenty of stuff looked in great condition. There was a team high on the Ginat on the Droites N face, 4 people skiing the NE slope on Les Courtes, and plenty of lines looking in good condition on the verte/grand rocheuse.

Anyway, after a very pleasant skin through some amazing country we got to the bergschrund on the col but despite trying side stepping on skis and just about everything else, we couldn't make much progress. The slope is currently covered in about 60 cm of soft snow and although it would be a good ski, it would be a desperate climb, and neither of us was too fussed so we took the option of a nice ski down and looking at the views. Weather looks to be stabilising soon so here's hoping for a good week.

Only the best day ever.

Yesterday was quite simply the best day of the season. Started off with a run down the Glacier Ronde (difficile, 45 - 50 degrees) off the Midi, and found quite icy conditions near the top - not the sort of place to fall - but then perfect powder from half way down and throughout the exit couloir.

Unfortunately Dave never made it that far because about 150 metres down the Glacier his binding detached from his ski - not ideal. The ski shot off down the glacier and although Tom managed to intercept it, there was no way of re - attaching it so Dave had to wait until someone came down and then borrow their crampons (we had none, oops) in order to climb out. It took him 4 hours to reach the Midi....

Dave getting ready to climb, his ski visible way below.

Having seen Dave off we skiied the exit couloir and then traversed towards the Plan de L'Aiguille, before cutting off directly above the Mont Blanc Tunnel. The powder was untracked, deep, and the lightest I have EVER skiied in Cham. Simply unbelievable, and up there as the best set of turns I've ever done.

We made it back to the tunnel after some bush whacking and a short walk, and then having hitched back down we got 60 metre ropes and headed back up to do the Cunningham couloir (AD, 45 - 50 degrees). This is the couloir running under the midi bridge, and requires a pretty airy 60 metre ab straight off the bridge. We then did 3 further abs off bolted belays. The initial anchor off the bridge is on a stantion on the right as you onto the bridge, and then the next belay is about 55 metres down, slightly to the left as you look in. The remaining belays are on the right looking down the couloir and easy to spot.

Looking down the Cunningham. Cham skiing in a nutshell - steep, deep and uncompromising.

Looking up the Cunningham from the top of the Ronde exit couloir.

The couloir was again perfect, deep powder, and then we traversed easily across the exit couloir off the Ronde, and skiied more champagne snow back to the tunnel. With more snow on the way, the Plan de l'Aiguille and the runs down the midi face are just going to get better....but I'm now in Scotland for 10 days. You couldn't make it up!