A week in France?

Day 1: Sushi in an Airport

Well Claire came down on the Fridday night, and stay over so we could pack. Instead we watch I, Robot and then hurriedly crammed everything into the bag (borrowing some scale off our next door neighbours). We promply jumped into the car and headed to the airport.

We arrived (after a little worry about the traffic) to find the car parking guys worried about us and that we’d miss our flight. Needless to say, we didn’t and we lugged out 24.5kg bag around the airport for a while till we decided to sit down and eat something, sushi! I’ll admit I was scared. I’m not a great fan of flying. Claire found this all very assuming!

Well the flight went alright and we met Sassa, Fabrice, Melissa and Mystique (le chat) that night. I think this was the start of the salad.

Day 2: Ou est la trad climbing?

We met Idhir and Simmin (Claire Brother and his partner) at En Masse. We did sleep in too late so there was not market for Claire. At En Masse, we jumped cars and Idhir took us to Chamonix to get set up at the camp site. Then he took us out for a meal (and also got us drunk).

We also went for a nice walk, ploughing through the French undergrowth involving snakes and giant ants nests!

After a cobbled conversation with Fabrice the night before, I’d enquired about some trad climbing. I explained that in England, we call placing your own protection, trad climbing. He said, maybe one or people, may possibly do that. He also said that “trad climbing” in France meant clipping bolts. He also called me a “kamikaze British climber” for placing my own gear on route.

We found a Guide book in Cham (in English) and planned our climbing for the next few days! We’d noticed some massive slabs on the way up above Agentire, which we planned to find.

Day 3: Bloody Ibex

We got up, early-ish. The camp site we stayed at (Mer de Glace) gave us uber-cool-free-travel-anywhere-in-Chamonix-valley cards, so we headed for the bus stop. After a slight miscalculation with the bus time table, meaning we didn’t need our early start, we were finally on our way.

We got dropped in Montroc, which was a little further, but it only meant an hours walk to the crag (Les chesery). This wouldn’t have been a problem, apart from the 31 degree weather which was trying to fry us. Either way we persevered and struggled to the crag. We actually managed to enjoy lunch under the glorious shade of some trees. Oddly there was still snow at the base of the crag.

We headed up Voie Bleue D+ (hardest pitch was F5c). At 150m metres long in the mid day sun, it was quite a climb (with my tiny stripped down trad rack, few nuts and cams). Long slabs, then grooves and a corner crack! We abseiled off only to find the industrious Ibex had eaten all our spare food!

We had to run for the bus (which we did in 40 minutes) and then went into Cham for some more food and a meal.

Day 4: “You guys are defiantly from the UK!”

Well today we did get up early (or at least tried too). Bad thunderstorm have been predicted for the afternoon so we thought we'd get the climbing in before it rained. We headed up to Vallorcine, apparently the best granite crag in the area. Obviously our early start was busted when we had to wait an hour for the train, but it was alright. The crag is like 15 minutes from the railway so when we got there we ran in and... it rained (but of course). So we sheltered a boulder whilst he listened to some english speaking chaps yelling as they abseil off. They caught up with us under our rock. It had stopped raining by this point. We got talking and ask them if they where leaving, they said they were. As the rain had stopped we said we'd probably go climbing anyway only for they to retort "your definatly from the UK, its coming in hard" (they were Aussies or Kiwis, couldn't tell which). Anyway we went climbing and had a great time on Le Plantigrade magnesophage (F5c). Someone had stripped the insitu gear from the third pitch so i took my rack along (finally some trad climbing!). It did however rain again, hard like the guys said it would, whilst I was finishing the third pitch (took awhile but I got a little lost, it involved some abseiling) and claire climbed in the rain. There was not point bailing off, we had nowhere dry to run to so. We finished

that, then Claire lead a 4c single picth which was great, but again meant we had to run for the train...which was late! We went back to chamonix and had fondue (sooooo much cheese, I almost died). The trains from cham wern't running so we had to get a taxi. We asked the waiter if he could call us one. We the guy charged us throught the nose for one, we said we'd wait and the waiter called a mate instead. He turned up a few minutes later and took us back in his car! how awesome!

Day 5: “Is good recreation, no?”

Our final day in chamonix area came around. We hiked up to Les Chepeau (didn't get up early enough to climb) then got the bus back to chamonix. Fabrice came to pick us up and we head home... or so we thought. Instead he said we were going to do some via ferrata. We headed up to [insert name] and he got us sorted with his spare lanyards and off we went. Claire said it took to it like a duck to water as I ran nimbly across little ladders and wire bridges.

Day 6: A French market, and some sausage

We took a day off and went round a market with Sassa. The market was awesome with so much fresh food. We had loads of dried sausage (free samples!). We spent the rest of the day relaxing and reading I think (pretty much read Lord of the Flys in one day).

Day 7: A day of sport.

Fabrice came home from work early and me and claire sorted lunch. We headed off to Haut Chablaise for a day of sport climbing (there was not trad gear in site). Fabrice Told us that this cliff was used for Frances first climbing competition. Since it has fallen out of favour and isn't a poular crag now. Its hard to undersatnd why as the cliff is excellent limestone, the bolts are all looked after and it has areally nice 10 minute walking through a forest. Well we went anyway, and pretty much had the crag to ourselves. Fabrice started up Biberon (F4a,5b+,6a) and took pitch one and lowered off, both me and Claire sec

oned this and then I headed up pitches 2 and 3 with Fabrice. Claire then lead Carmel (F4/5) then pitches 1 and 2 of Daffy (F4a, 5b, 6a). I took the last pitch and ran out of quickdraws so used up everything on my harness. This we read after was the crag classic! The Fabrice took pitch 1 of Pampers (F5b, 5c, 5b) and took pitches 2/3. This rounded off our day nicely, and we headed home.

Day 8: Going home

Well the end of outr trip came around. Some mad packing enable us to cram everything in our case (only weight 29 kilos) and we made it to the airport with plenty of time. Back in Britian, the weather was unusually nice.

This was an awesome trip, even though it envolved loads of sport climbing! Climbing with Fabrice was awesome. He attitude towards climbing was completly different to mine, yet at the same time we were doing the same thing. Actually the whole "french" attitude towards climbing was different but still awesome. I really enojyed myself (and hopefully so did Claire) and I'm taking away from this trip, not to mind if there a few bolts on the climb, just clip them and move on. At the end of the day, we're all doing the same thing, enjoying ourselves.

Anyway, Fabrice is coming over in the summer. I'm going to the take the poor guy real trad climbing (insert very evil laugh).