Chamonix 2

Thursday 1^st August

Sat in the van trying to re-charge all the electrics (with my rudimentary electrics system) after our first route and our first bivouac at altitude. I already feel pretty trashed over all, but it's a good ache if that'll make any sense?

Our first route was the cosmiques arete (PD, II) on the Aiguille du Midi. I can see why it's such a popular route too. It's easily accessible, short enough that you can waste time on it and it seems to have a bit of everything. There's even possibilities to make it harder and harder depending on whether you want to climb the awkward little ice chimneys near the finish. I think our time from start to finish was 3.5 hours, which is a little slower than the guidebook time recommends but that's OK. It was our first route, Finney was out in front for most of the moving together and we were slowed down by the effects of altitude. I was over the moon with what we did.

Team pic just before setting off to the valle blanche

Walking in down the ridge, the one and only time we roped up for this

after caching the kit, Andy sets off out front

Picking out way through the boulders

Tech support is called on to set up the abseils

messner?

short section of alpine rock 

Finishing the route (me)

Andy finishing (I'm not sure how he copes with that mass of gear clipped everywhere)

However we didn't just do the cosmiques. The original plan was to bivi out and then head for Mont Blanc du Tacul's Triangle face and climb either the C-G or the C-Couloir. After finishing the first route, we took a leisurely walk back to our cached kit (under a boulder near the Abi Simond and the start of the cosmiques). We'd taken bivi sacks and packed as light as we could. Our little bivi was alright. I'd have given it a 6/10 and I'm pretty sure we could have made it much better with a little more work but we were tired.

Our evening was spent resting, melting snow to rehydrate and make food (provided by a stash of dehydrated expedition meals I've been saving up for months). We probably should have gone to bed a lot earlier than we did but we walked over to the cosmiques hut in the evening to ask about conditions on our objective for the next day. We were told to get up as early as possible and head over, which was fine we us. We hurried back and bedded down.

our now uncached kit, making a fine mess

"drinking like a poor person"

Clearly not poor enough to have someone melting snow for him

Waking up at 2am was definatley worth it, even if we only woke up to decided that we were completely trashed from the night before and going climbing would be a silly idea. Although I'd slept soundly, Andy hadn't gotten a wink of sleep and had just been lay there, trying to rest. We watched the line of head torches heading up Mont Blanc du Tacul's main route for a while and brewed up, before resetting the watch and heading back to sleep. This time Andy slept.

We still woke up early and very quickly a plan was hashed out. We'd skip breakfast and then head back down. Everyone else had tents and we realised that we'd be better off if we lugged ours up here. Heading back down also meant we could eat properly, re-stock all our food and gas and plan things a little better.

I think we did the right thing in doing the cosmiques arete. It was essentially an easy route and we had enough time to work out any problems we would encounter on it. It also mean that we acclimatised well and had a better understanding on the environment we were in. I'm used to just wild camping in Wales somewhere and just knowing where everything is, out here it's a little different. It was also a fantastic route!.

Saturday 3^rd August

We've just got back from either an awesome time up in the mountains or a bit of a spirit quest, depending on how you look at it. We've been up in the mountains for 2 nights with a day's climbing in the middle. In that time up there I climbed my hardest alpine route and ended up leading every pitch, it was also probably the hardest winter route I've done (if you were to make a comparison with Scottish winter climbing). We spent the time making good decision, getting stressed at each other, panicking and laughing. Hell, there almost tears at one point.

Picking up where the last post left off we got back down to Chamonix and actually made a plan. We slept for a couple of hours, planned the food we'd take went shopping and set out all the kit we'd need. This level of preparation is unheard of between Finney and I (unless we go caving of course). All this careful planning went out the window when Finney went to get the tickets before the Telecabine place closed. He came running back 10 minutes later, while I was checking over the kit I'd lain over the ground with a panicked look on his face. The last ride up left in 20 minutes! I've never packed so quickly! however we still had to run to the sky car (as Finney has termed it).

Jess, a near constant mess.

We soon found ourselves walking round the Valle Blanche glacier looking for somewhere to put our tent. Everyone else had built a snow wall around theirs and had a nice little pitch. Everyone else it seems had brought a snow shovel. I don't even own one, but the team of Russians camped near us kindly lent one out to us. This wouldn't be the only thing we lent off them as in the rush to pack everything Finney did not have his head torch. Our original plan was to leave at 0230 to get to the route. Again the Russians kindly obliged and one of them handed over his head torch telling Finney “it's like the power of the sun, in the palm of your hand”. It was a pretty good head torch. After this our evening was reasonably relaxed, probably the most stress being either a choice of route or having to melt snow for water.

digging with our borrowed Russian snow shovel

an almost perfect spot to sit and view the route

I woke up before my watch went off at 0145 and lay there waiting for it to start it's annoying bleeping. We'd actually gone to the effort of setting the most piercing and irritating tone just so we'd actually wake up. There was no wind and only the very faint metallic sound of climbing gear clicking together. I thought we were all alone until I opened the tent and saw a steady stream of people making their way from the Cosmiques Hut and up Mont Blanc Du Tacul's original route. We brewed up, packed up, breakfasted and set off, plodding across the hard crisp snow in the direction of our route.

"what? we have to get up?!"

breakfast, tasted like vomit.

It's hard to describe what the climb was like without giving a rather boring blow by blow account of each pitch (which would just result in a mass of words meaningless to anyone but me) so instead I'll condense it as best I can. We geared up at the bergschrund, which Finney managed to put his foot through (to my amusement and his horror) and I set of climbing over it up the easy angled snow slopes. The first snow slope was about 100 metres of climbing (in from the left to avoid possible serac falls) before we even started on the route. In the early morning darkness we could only see about 50 metres up the couloir... and it looked amazing.

first ice screw of the whole trip!

The first part of the route was an ice up gully, with a short mixed section. This mixed section was from where the ice had fallen off about a week before (as we learnt from the guardian at the cosmiques hut). It still had hard neve snow in the back so it didn't prove a problem. The gully itself fluctuated between 60° and 95° degree ice for 5/6 pitches and was some of the best ice I've ever climbed. I can still feel the burning in the calves! We had a slight problem about pitch 3 where Finney's belay device made a bid for freedom and trundled off down the gully to be lost in the darkness (Italien hitches all the way!). By the last couple of the ice pitches the sun was coming up.

climbing in the dark, you can only fall as far as your head torch beam

a happy andy

an even happier and more comfortable andy

(that black and white tape is a homemade leash... it was crap, just buy one)

the sun slowly making it's presence known

With the sun coming up we actually could see where we were going. The next section of the climb was a broken up mixed section with unconsolidated powder snow, easy climbing with loose rock and harder route finding. Finney was letting the route get to him and by the time we were through this section he was talking about backing off. He didn't seem to want to actually agree on backing off, so I left him too it. It must have been a pretty big full on experience. His second alpine route and finding himself up 350m in a load of loose terrain with the knowledge that the snow ride we had decided on as our was down would be hitting the sun about now. I shared his concerns but I was safe in the knowledge that we could back off from where ever we ended up. I just wanted to keep moving.

1. calmly select ice screw, ignoring your already burning calves

2. place said screw the ice, clip it, then breath a sigh of relief

3. Start climbing, repeating steps 1 & 2, whilst ignoring the rising burn in your calves

4. continue climbing, whilst screaming at yourself to keep going. The pitch can only be so long

5. clip something that look like a belay and take the weight off your feet and relax. Act cool when your partner arrives, because right now you're in a bit of a state...

Finney finished his mental battle and I set off up another pitch of 55° ice, traversing under the loose rocks and stealing tat along the way. Another pitch of this ice led me on to a snowy ridge and a decent belay which I brought Finney up to. Being honest I was pretty pissed off at this moment. I was unfairly blaming Finney for this that weren't his fault and we were moving too slow. I'd allowed myself to get frustrated as well. We didn't have a choice but to keep climbing, so I set off up what I thought was that last but one pitch, and what a pitch!

Looking ahead...

The “last but one” pitch turned out to be the last pitch of the route and the final 30 metres of it were immense. The ice was very thin but it didn't matter. I danced my crampons across the thin ice while my tools led the way. I was torque my picks in cracks, hooking tiny thin edges and burying the entire of my hammer into one crack to make upward progress. All the stress and frustration just fell away and with the last and hardest moved I found myself hooking my axes over a block, before mantling onto my right foot and standing up looking up at... nothing, other than the snowy ridge that was a possible descent route. I yelled I was at the top and then gave him a thumbs up to let Andy know I was safe. Nothing else needed to be said.

Finney's first encounter with one of the many jokes in winter/alpine climb. Stuff freezing solid.

70 degree alpine ice

part of the loose scrambly terrain

a haunted look. n.p.

topping out

I genuinely can't believe I actually posed like this.

 a happy Finney

I had a massive sense of relief when Andy topped out. Not because I was happy the climb was over (I was also feeling slightly gutted that it didn't go on longer) but because it meant that I could concentrate on the second half of the route; getting down and back to the tents (the first being to approach the climb safely and get up it). One of Andy's worried while we were on the loose mixed scrambly terrain was how we were going to get down. It didn't seem to matter how much I assured him it would be fine, because for him the situation would have been overwhelming. He told me afterwards that pretty much all the climbing he's done before that route was just a simple and obvious walk off. This route did have a “walk off”, but it was a steep snow ridge, that at this moment in time had been sitting in the sun for way too long and seemed to be packed up with windslab. The guides we'd spoken too suggested just rappelling* down the shoulder and joining up with the Mont Blanc du Tacul route to cross the bergschrund or we could simply rappel back down the route itself. We'd seen enough tat and bolts that we could get down, but it was a winedy route with a lot of loose rock. We discussed the options.

We agreed to rap down the shoulder, just because it was a more direct line and so I began explaining to Andy and showing him how to bail off route**. The first rappel was simple apart from the ropes getting twisted together, the second went smoothly apart from putting me in the middle of a 50° ice/snow field. Andy'd already agreed that this was still the best option. I sat about hacking away at the snow and ice till I found something good enough to put a screw in. Andy was soon joining me on my poor excuse for a ledge while I worked away at building a couple of abalakov threads. I'd never built one before but we had a good back up and it was worth a test, we could always leave an ice screw or down climb in necessary.

my first abalakov threads

It did work (obviously, as I'm still here) but the ropes didn't reach the flatter snow. I tried to find more ice in the snow but it was just crap snow now. Settling for a bucket seat I yelled up to Andy. He didn't seem inspired by my bucket seat idea and instead opted to down climb, making short work of crossing a small cravasse. We now only had one obstacle in our way, the main bergschrund but a good track crossed it and we'd watched several people cross it (from a distance) and they'd not slowly down. It wasn't that challenging either, just a short hop and we were walking down defrosting snow, laughing as my crampons balled up and I kept slipping over. It think we were a little dehydrated.

The route is the gully on the right (1 o'clock from Finney's head)

Finney doing some snow melting

We did make it back to camp, safe and sound and the evening was spent eating, rehydrating but mainly melting snow for more water. It seems like the never-ending task! Our original plan was to go rock climbing on one of the spires of the cosmiques arete the next day, but we were trashed from the day before when we woke up. Instead we lay in the tent making brews and relaxing... until a nice gentleman from the PGHM arrived and told us off for having a tent up (which was fair play really). This gave us the push we needed to get moving. We packed up, walked out and promptly rode the telecabine down, with the same PGHM chap who'd told us off earlier. Finney thought we were going to get arrested.

My van was still parked up in it's little spot, still in the same tip as when we'd left it just over 48 hours ago.

Second alpine route of the year and Andy's second ever alpine route. We were horribly dehind guidebook time and possibly misjudged how unstable the walk off (which we didnt take) was, but I'm more than happy with what we climbed. I was very proud to call myself Andy's climbing partner for the day. He dropped his belay device but so what. He took mine and carried on. He didn't even mention the idea of bailing off route. I watched him overcome his fear and push forward. Personally I was happy I lead about 12 pitches without coming off once (especially as some were rather run out). We didn't get lost on route and made sensible decisions about how to get down. Looking back on this experience there isn't anything I would change if I could go back and do it over, not even Andy dropping the belay.

Always remember: it doesn't have to be “fun” to the fun!

Footnotes:

*[it would be abseiling but I'm currently in the alps, for it's rappelling for now]

**[Some people might question the idea to bring an inexperienced partner into the mountains. I'd agree with this but I'd rather be with a friend and have an experience we can share together]

East Gully (IV 3,4)

Easter Weekend 2013: a cold adventure.

[I'm not going to lie, I've been really struggling to write this post for a few weeks. It happens sometimes that I just don't know how to get everything down that I want to say about a weekend. Sometimes it just that no matter what I write it comes across as a disjointed and cobbled mess jumping from point to point. I've got to get this one down though, because it really was an excellent weekend]

Each Easter I go away to Wales. I have done ever since my first Easter trip years ago with Toaf. As times have progressed I've been away for whole weekends in good weather with loads of people to a single day trip. There's has only been one Easter trip that's actually winter conditions and I remember Toaf and I heading out (sans crampons, though avec a walking axe each) and doing the north and south ridges of Tryfan, Bristly Ridge and then having the navigate off the Glyder plateaux in a full white out. It was one to remember.

This year there was the best winter conditions I've experienced in Wales and I got to spend three days ice climbing at Idwal. Not only that but I went away with some great people. I couple we're old friends, one a recent additon to my climbing life and one was someone I've been wanting to get out with, but never really through our paths would cross. To make things even better I got to take out two of my friends, who won't mind me telling you that they only had a little or zero ice climbing experience before hand.

In the end Tim, Laura, Finney, Simon and Me base camped at Eric's barn. The barn itself feels like a second home to me and it has everything I could require for a base camp of sorts. We'd had a nice set up in there with a mock kitchen on the one side and all of us sleeping at the same end of the bunks. There was even a nice bean to hang all the winter kit off to dry. Our days were all actually pretty similar. We'd aim to get up around 6am, which meant that I did and everyone else stayed in bed for an extra few minutes (or half an hour). The planned leaving time was 0700 but we always mssed it. Then we'd drive to Idwal and walk in for our chosen route. By 1600 each day (normally sooner) we were back at Eric's lazing around outside in the sunshine waxing lyrical about the days' climbing while the gear hung from beams, rafter and washing lines drying. For some reason the boots always ended up on the top of my car.

The evenings were spent getting a bit drunk and cooking a variety of different foods as each climbing team seemed to be cooking for themselves. The evening activities would follow and this ranged from bouldering around the inside of the barn, dry-tooling the outside of he barn (including the beams, much to the horror of Laura), chin-up competitions and general tomfoolery. At some point Me and Simon would usually sit down and look through the guidebook for an objective for the next day, before the bags were packed and the kit made ready for the morning. The evenings last activity always ended up being a shiver in the sleeping bags... the hut has no heating.

Our first day saw us heading for Idwal Stream (II/III). It's a route I've climbed before in winter but doing it again would be fun. Routes never form in exactly the same way and the ice has a different character each year depending on what has led up to it forming. Idwal was a good option because it also offered lots of escape routes, should that me necessary. Up until this point ice climbing was something Finney had only dreamed of, whilst Laura had had one day of winter climbing on the Ben under her belt (which very nearly put her off completely). Simon and Tim would climb together as one team, leaving Laura, Finney and myself to follow.

I block lead every pitch on Idwal, which left Finney and Laura alone on the belays and they then climbed together. The idea of this was to keep the speed up, something that has become an obsession in winter. Moving quickly just makes more sense to me. If I have confidence in myself and the conditions then I'll try and move as quick as possible, something that Laura apparently cursed me for as she struggled to pay the ropes out quick enough. I don't think I've told her but her belaying was pretty spot on all weekend.

As for the route itself it couldn't have been more perfect, especially for Laura and Finney's first day out. The pitches of ice seamlessly flowed into easy snow slopes with reasonbly good belays throughout the route. I don't think I enjoy climbing anything as much as I enjoy climbing ice. There is just something about it, the movement, the medium, the texture, the punishment. For me it is a very simple joy. It's strange to think that a bit of frozen water can cause so much emotion but it does. We climbed about five distinct pitches of ice, connected by short snow gullies before we go to the final snow slope. Here I moved together with Finney and Laura soloed for a bit, until she decided that she didn't like moving over snow and became part of Simon and Tim's team. As winter days go, it was pretty perfect.

The second day both of ours teams headed for The Ramp (III/IV 3) as it was slightly harder and we knew it was in condition. Both Laura and Finney had expressed a wish to try some harder ice and this coincided well with my own personal desire to climb another classic ice route in Idwal.

This time Laura, Finney and I were the first team in the route. The first pitch was more of a snowy ramp than anything else until the final 15ft where it steeped and became the base of the main icefall. I joined the team before me in shared the cramped belay and made polite conversation as I belayed up Laura and Finney. With the three of us sharing belays it did make things quite cramped but I found a few ways round it. One was pre-cutting ledges for Finney and Laura if necessary and the second was to get Laura involved with the belaying. She climbed faster than Andy (as he had to remove the last belay) and once she'd arrived, she took over belaying up Finney. This gave me chase to re-flake the ropes ready for the next pitch. Over the course of the weekend we seemed to have this particular technique down to a tee.

The next pitch of ice was the big one, at least for this route. It was only short but the ice was fat. It was very enjoyable to climb, made more so by the overhanging roof of rock which made movement so much harder. I ended up kneeling on an icey step at one point (a bit of a touch and go moment!) while I moved my axes up. It did end with a much more spacious belay though. Laura and Finney both seemed thoroughly engaged in the pitch as I belayed them up. I think Finney might have even had a moment when his crampons ripped out, which can't have been a fun experience on his second ice route.

The final pitch was like a lot of final pitches, long and snowy. I actually like these pitches because on the odd occasion that they're full of neve then you can literally just run up them. This pitch wasn't filled with neve, but never the less it was fun to try and climb it as fast as I could. Laura must have loathed belaying me on this type of terrain. I stopped before I ran out of rope, finding an excellent block to belay off and they both joined me while we sat and waited for Simon. Simon didn't show up for a while and eventually Tim appeared climbing up the snowy gully on the lead, grim faced and muttering “why the f*ck do I do this”. He smiled when he saw us and belayed off the same rock bring up a soaked Simon, as the icefall has sprung a leak and he had nowhere to go. I guess that's just one of the perils of winter climbing!

On our final day we headed straight for Central Route (III, 3/4) but this time Tim didn't join us. He did walk in with us and even took some food and drink to meet us at the top after he'd bagged Y-Garn. Laura and I were first on route with Finney and Simon following on behind us. The first pitch was everything I wanted in a ice route, even with the lack of gear. We didn't even have a belay to start from, though we could have dug and axe belay. I'd set off with the intention of getting something in early but unless I pegged some rather chossy rock I wasn't going to happen. Instead I just enjoyed moving quickly over some excellent ice. I did find something eventually below the first serious bit of steeper ice. It was here that having 60 metre ropes really paid off.

Me and Laura were the first team on the route that day, something that I love. I hate being stuck behind another team for quite a few reasons. There is always the risk of ice, rock, gear or even a person coming down on you but my big concern is that I'm forced to belay behind the other team. It just wastes time and with this approach it saw me jetting off up the steepest bit of ice till I ran out of rope just after I'd passed it (much to my relief!). Laura climbed so well that day and she really enjoyed it.

The next pitch was a snowy gully with short sections of ice, before it broadened out again. Here I could just pick and choose whichever line I wanted, so of course I went for the hardest piece sure that Laura would be able to follow. Again she did and on arriving we decided it was time for Laura to learn how to take coils and move together. We didn't really need to as it was easy enough to solo but with such a nice day we could afford to. The final snow slope up the gully actually steepened but was full of perfect neve. I almost regretted the moving together as I just wanted to run up as fast as I could! We made short work of it either way.

Our speed on this route turned into our slight downfall as we now had to wait for our partners in crime climbing beneath us. It turned out they'd had to do it in three pitches in the end but we took the time to go through various snow anchors before settling down to huddle together out of the wind. It was almost a shame to look down on what was a perfect snow slope to see it covered in my crampon marks and a tonne of different ice axes belays and snow bollards. As we sat and waited who should turn up but Tim. This welcome surprise was made all the better by the flask of hot tea he provided. It wasn't long before Finney and Simon joined us, soloing up the final slope, Finney with a look of complete happiness on his face.

And that was it for our winter climbing over the Easter weekend. Considering I'd written off this winter season completely due to the state of my ankles I was overjoyed to get these routes in. It also reminded me how much I love climbing ice and just being out in winter in general. I couldn't have asked for better partners to climb with, or better people to spend time with over the 4 days. It was so nice to be away with a group so solely psyched to just get out climbing.

This winter trip has also led me onto planning another Alps trip, with Finney who's just psyched to get out there that I literally can't wait. Simon'll be out there this summer as well so the possibility of teaming up with him for a route is always on the cards.

Life is good.